Thursday 18 February 2021

Canada: New coronavirus variants gaining ground


Global News shows that Canada is making progress reducing the spread of the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic. After peaking at nearly 8,000 new cases in January, infections have now fallen to below 3,000 per day. However, the bad news is that highly-contagious new variants are gaining ground and have been detected in all 10 provinces in Canada.
 
In the time of 2 weeks, the number of active cases in N.L. has jumped from 14 to 338 with 44 new cases confirmed Wednesday. It’s believed the spike has been driven by the U.K. variant.
 
Scientists are certainly learning about these new virus variants. Some viruses have combined to form a mutated hybrid. It is not known if this hybrid poses a bigger threat.

Hopefully, a bigger third wave doesn't happen with new virus variants.

British Columbia has now identified more than 60 cases of COVID-19 involving "variants of concern." That includes the province's single case of the variant B.1.525, the mutation first detected in Nigeria. The Nigerian variant is classified as a "variant under investigation," because researchers are still trying to determine whether its mutations make it more contagious.

Experts say B1525, referred to as the Nigerian variant, should now be the subject of surge testing to limit the spread of the deadly virus. There have been 38 cases of the Nigerian variant identified in the UK as of Tuesday 16 February.

The Nigerian variant contains the same genetic change - E484K - also found in the Brazilian and South African variants.

No comments:

Post a Comment