The New Year began with a worsening of the New Coronavirus epidemic in the United States, with confirmed cases surpassing the 20 million mark and more than 340,000 cumulative deaths. The WHO confirmed that there are four variants of the new coronavirus, which are more infectious but not more symptomatic.
AFP cited data from Johns Hopkins University on Friday showing that the United States has more than 20 million confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, with a cumulative total of 346,400 deaths, making it the world’s deadliest country for the new coronavirus; the United States also leads the world with far more confirmed cases than India, which has 1.03 million cases.
This Wednesday, the United States added 3,900 new deaths in a single day. More than 125,300 people have been admitted to hospitals for treatment of new coronavirus infections. The number of confirmed cases increased dramatically in December since the U.S. surpassed 10 million last November.
And to date, more than 83 million cases have been diagnosed worldwide, with more than 1.82 million cumulative deaths.
In addition, the latest statistics released by the British government on Friday showed that 55,892 new cases were confirmed in the United Kingdom on Thursday, which is the fourth consecutive day that more than 40,000 new cases were confirmed daily. However, the number of deaths decreased significantly, to 964 cases. Britain’s national health department said Friday that temporary hospitals built at the beginning of the outbreak will be reopened in response to the increasingly dire situation.
The British government decided Friday to close all elementary school in London for two weeks to curb the spread of the new variant of the virus.
Separately, Turkish Health Minister Koca said on social media platforms that 15 cases of a new variant of the coronavirus were found in tests of travelers who recently entered Turkey from the United Kingdom. Turkey has suspended the entry of travelers from the United Kingdom.
According to the World Health Organization on Friday, four variants of the 2019 coronavirus have emerged so far, with initial studies showing that some of them are more infectious but do not cause more severe symptoms and do not change existing diagnostic methods.
The WHO said it has received several notifications of unusual public health events since the beginning of the outbreak, which may be related to the new coronavirus variants. The WHO said that the previously notified D614G mutant virus, as well as the recently notified variants found in Denmark, the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland and South Africa, have raised concerns about the impact of the virus change.
WHO noted that a mutant virus (SARS-CoV-2) was identified in late January or early February 2020, and over several months, this mutant virus replaced the SARS-CoV-2 strain first identified in China, becoming the most prevalent strain globally by June 2020. In December 2020, the United Kingdom notified WHO of a mutant virus that
WHO said that after preliminary epidemiological studies, simulations, lineage surveys and clinical observations, this variant virus in the UK was found to be more infectious. But the preliminary analysis also shows that, based on the number of days patients are hospitalized and mortality rate within 28 days and other criteria to measure, this variant of the virus compared with other strains of the virus circulating in the United Kingdom, and will not make the disease more serious, nor will there be repeated infections with different strains of the virus.
The WHO said that the emergence of virus variants is to be expected, any increase in infectivity caused by the variant virus will make prevention more difficult; and the WHO’s current recommended disease control measures are still valid and should be adjusted at any time due to more changes in the disease.
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