According to a research report released online by the British government on the 12th, the mutated strain of Wuhan pneumonia “B.1.1.7”, which was traced from the UK last September, is not only 30% to 70% more transmissible as previously known, but also has an increased risk of hospitalization and is more fatal than the original strain of the virus by 30% to 70%. It is also doubling in the United States every nine days, and Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, estimates that it will become the leading strain in the United States by the end of next month.
The official report from the United Kingdom is based on a number of databases that track cases on a large scale in the country, but the data on nursing Home infections is as incomplete as it is, and it is only known that its spread among vulnerable people is so severe that it is “disproportionate,” and the reasons for its increased Life-threatening power are not yet clear. Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist who serves as a scientific advisor to the British government, pointed out on the 13th that the above data show that relaxing the social ban currently in place across the UK would be dangerous, as “B.1.1.7” not only leads to an increase in the risk of hospitalization by forty to sixty percent, the mortality rate is “catastrophic”.
The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) 11 on the medical paper preprint site “MedRxiv” research, but analysis of 3,382 Wuhan pneumonia cases, of which 1,722 people are infected with “B.1.1 .7 “The risk of death increased by 0.6% to 0.9% in men aged 55 to 69 and by 0.2% to 0.3% in women in the same age group.
Since the British government announced the emergence of “B.1.1.7” late last year, this variant of the virus has become a strong strain in parts of the United Kingdom, leading authorities last month to respond with a longer and stricter restriction of movement than before. It has so far invaded at least 82 countries around the world, and is the main cause of the winter surge of new cases in European countries, which also rely on the closure of cities to contain the spread of the Epidemic, with some countries emphasizing the importance of masks to prevent the epidemic.
However, scientists have found that patients infected with “B.1.1.7” have a higher amount of virus in their bodies, which may result in a stronger ability to spread, and some treatments may lose their effectiveness due to this feature. In the United States, for example, it is 35% to 40% more infectious than other strains in the local territory. Huang Zhihuan, an epidemiologist at the RAND Corporation, a U.S. think tank, called for accelerated vaccination to reduce the chance of virus transmission and mutation.
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