At least 1.75 million people worldwide died from the new coronavirus Saturday as the first shipment of the new coronavirus vaccine arrived in European Union countries, while the British variant of the virus was found Saturday in Japan and Sweden.
One case of the British variant of the virus was found in France on Friday, after Germany and Lebanon, and Sweden’s neighbor Denmark, where 33 cases of this variant have been found, announced the discovery of the same virus. On Saturday, Italy announced the discovery of more than a dozen cases of the British variant of the virus, Sweden found one, Spain found four cases, and Japan announced the discovery of cases of the British variant of the virus one after another. The University of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine believes that this variant is 50-74% more infectious than the previous virus, raising fears that more patients will be hospitalized or more deaths will be added in 2021.
After the discovery of the variant virus, fears led several countries to cut off air travel as well as land transportation with the United Kingdom, and Japan decided that all foreigners who are not permanent residents of Japan will not be allowed to enter the country from Monday until the end of January. In Japan, the number of confirmed cases hit another record on Saturday, approaching 1,000.
Earlier, new variants were also found in Africa, in South Africa and Nigeria. The variant found in Nigeria is different from South Africa, but has similar components to the variant of the virus in the UK. Virologist John Nkengasong, director of the African Center for Disease Prevention and Control, which belongs to the African Union, is testing new samples to obtain the transmission rate of the Nigerian variant of the virus. Pending this result, Habi, the Nigerian micromolecular biologist who measured the aforementioned variant virus, called for no rush to conclusions, saying that as of now, there is no evidence that the variant virus is directly related to the accelerated spread of the new coronavirus in Nigeria.
Nigeria currently has 82,000 confirmed cases and 1,246 deaths, a number that remains low compared to its total population, but since the beginning of the month, the country has been testing positive at an average rate of several hundred people per day.
Concerns have been raised as to whether the mutated virus will make the new crown vaccine, which has just been released, ineffective. Modena 23 said it expects its New Coronavirus vaccine to produce an immune effect against the New Coronavirus variant found in the United Kingdom. The company said it will conduct further tests on the vaccine in the coming weeks to confirm the expected effectiveness.
Britain’s AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals told Reuters on Tuesday that the new crown vaccine they developed with Oxford University should be effective against the variant, and said it was conducting studies to fully investigate the impact of the variant.
BioNTech, the German pharmaceutical company that jointly developed the Pfizer vaccine with Pfizer Group, said on Tuesday that the new crown vaccine the company developed with Pfizer is still effective against the new variant of the virus, said Sachin, chief executive of the company. If it is not effective enough, he said, a new vaccine can be designed to directly mimic the new variant and be made within six weeks.
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