Following the first confirmed case of the British variant of the CCP virus in Shanghai, a case has recently emerged in Guangzhou, in the form of an 18-year-old male Chinese student.
On January 3, the Guangzhou Daily client reported that on January 2, 2021, the Guangdong Provincial CDC found a mutant strain of B.1.1.7 in the throat swab sample of a confirmed case imported from the UK, which is highly similar to the genetic sequence of the recent mutant virus from the UK.
The case was reported to be an 18-year-old male Chinese student. The male student entered Guangzhou from the UK on December 4, 2020 and tested negative for nucleic acid upon entry; on December 18, he tested positive for nucleic acid at the isolation site and was subsequently diagnosed; on December 27, the Guangdong Provincial CDC performed genomic sequencing analysis of the case’s throat swab sample, which initially suggested a B.1.1.7 mutant strain.
On January 2, 20201, the results were reviewed again and showed that the sample viral gene sequence belonged to subtype B.1.1.7 and contained 13 branch-specific amino acid variant sites of the B.1.1.7 subtype mutant strain, including the S protein N501Y, which is potentially important for the virus’ ability to infect, the P681H mutation and the S protein 69-70 deletion mutation associated with viral immune escape.
And previously, on December 30, 2020, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention released a study that a 23-year-old female student who arrived in Shanghai from the United Kingdom on December 14, 2020 was diagnosed; genetic sequencing of her viral strain on December 24 confirmed that the strain was identical to the variant that had been circulating in the United Kingdom since late October.
This variant of the virus is known to be 40% to 70% more infectious than the original virus.
This variant of the virus has recently been found in several places in Asia, including Taiwan, India, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Currently, Taiwan has banned foreigners from entering the country; India has decided to extend the ban on British flights until January 7, 2021; Japan has banned most foreign nationals with non-resident status from entering the country until the end of January 2021; in addition, more than fifty countries have imposed travel restrictions on the UK in recent days.
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