Adds element, virologist remark LONDON, Jan 15 (Reuters) -
Adds element, virologist remark
LONDON, Jan 15 (Reuters) – A Brazilian variant of the coronavirus is important sufficient to justify stopping flights from South America as a precaution, British transport minister Grant Shapps stated on Friday, as a number one scientist stated it had been detected in Britain.
Britain will ban arrivals from South American nations and Portugal due to issues over a brand new Brazilian variant of the coronavirus.
The Brazilian variant shares some traits with these present in Britain and South Africa, that are believed by scientists to be extra transmissible however to not trigger extra extreme illness.
“As with the variant that we noticed in Kent (southern England)or the one in South Africa, it is considerably sufficient of curiosity to us simply to take this precautionary strategy of stopping all these flights from Brazil (and) South America,” Shapps advised Sky Information.
“Our scientists aren’t saying that the vaccine will not work in opposition to it… (however) we don’t need to be tripping up at this final second (of vaccine rollout) which is why I took the choice as an additional precaution to ban these flights.”
Shapps later stated scientists believed vaccines would work on the Brazilian variant, going additional than the federal government’s chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance.
Vallance on Wednesday stated there wasn’t proof vaccines would not work however stated the Brazilian variant was extra of a threat and “we do not know” if it might have an effect on the immune response.
A number one British virologist stated the Brazilian variant had been traced in Britain.
“There are two several types of Brazilian variants and considered one of them has been detected (within the UK) and considered one of them has not,” Wendy Barclay, virologist at Imperial Faculty London, advised journalists, including it was “early days” within the understanding of the variants.
Together with UK and South African variants, the Brazilian variant is “of concern” and could be “traced very fastidiously,” she stated.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout and Kate Kelland; modifying by Michael Holden and James Davey)
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