In Groundhog Day news, scientists have found a new variant of coronavirus that is causing concern.
The B.1.1.529 variant, named by the World Health Organisation as Omicron, is thought to be the most transmissible version yet and has now spread to the UK and Europe following its first discovery in Hong Kong, South Africa and Botswana,
There are also concerns that vaccines may not be as effective as one would hope in blocking it – though more research must be done to clarify this.
Meanwhile, the UK and other countries have red-listed affected countries to stop people travelling with an invisible extra passenger and spreading it around, and scientists are rushing to gather evidence about the risk it poses.
As they do so, here’s everything we know about Covid’s unwanted reboot.
What is the new variant?
The new variant, which should be named ‘the for f**ks sake not this again variant’, has instead been named Omicron. Described as the worst scientists have seen in the pandemic, it has around 30 unusual mutations in the spike protein – the part of the virus vaccines use to block it – meaning it could be more transmissible.
Mutations in the spike protein can affect the virus’s ability to infect cells and spread, but also make it harder for immune cells to attack the pathogen and the number of mutations is about double the number associated with the Delta variant.
On Friday evening, the World Health Organisation designated it a variant of concern.
A new virus mutation is spreading rapidly in southern Africa (Brian Lawless/PA)
(PA Archive)Where has it been found?
There have been around 50 confirmed cases of the new strain in South Africa, Hong Kong and Botswana. Scientists believe that as many as 90 per cent of new cases in Gauteng, one of the provinces in South Africa where the strain was first found, could be B.1.1.529.
On Friday, it was confirmed that cases had been identified in Israel and Belgium, while on Saturday it was confirmed that two cases had been identified in the UK – in Nottingham and Essex. Both are believed to be connected and linked to travel to southern Africa.
The Netherlands was also of concern, with Dutch authorities saying 61 people tested positive for Covid-19 arriving on two flights from South Africa on Friday. Further tests are under way to determine if any of them had the Omicron variant.
How fast is it spreading?
Dr Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser to the UK Health and Security Agency, said the R rate – which measures how fast the virus spreads – in Gauteng is now 2, a level of transmission not recorded since the beginning of the pandemic. For an R of anything above 1, an epidemic will grow exponentially.
What are experts saying?
As ever, attempts to “follow the science” are being compounded by scientists having mixed opinions. Speaking to Sky News, Tom Peacock, a virologist at Imperial College London, described the mutations as “really awful” but said cases were currently “super low”.
Francois Balloux, professor of computational systems biology at University College London, said it should be closely monitored but “there is no reason to get overly concerned, unless it starts going up in frequency in the near future”.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Dr Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of Bern, said: “We cannot perfectly predict virus behaviour from mutations.
“Even lab work doesn’t perfectly mirror what happens in complex, whole-body real-life. Other, alarming variants have failed to spread very far in the past. We need more data.”
While Professor Danny Altmann, an immunologist at Imperial College, London, added: “We have all become pandemic fatigued, yet if this was a report of a terrorist threat, we would now be raising the threat level from amber to red.”
To The Mirror, Professor Ewan Birney, deputy director general of EMBL and director of EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), said: “Early evidence from genomic surveillance in South Africa suggests that B.1.1.529 is a serious cause for concern. The South African surveillance and epidemiology groups should be commended for their timely data collection, analysis and transparency.”
Undoubtedly, other scientists will have more to add in the coming days and weeks.
Will the vaccines protect people against it?
It’s too early to say. Work is under way to see whether the new variant may be causing new infection in people who have already had coronavirus or a vaccine, or whether waning immunity may be playing a role.
Professor James Naismith, director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute in Oxford, has said the new variant will “almost certainly” make vaccines less effective, though they would still offer protection.
Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, who helped create the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, expressed optimism that existing vaccines will be effective at protecting against serious disease caused by the new Omicron variant.
He also said it is “extremely unlikely” it will cause a “reboot” of the pandemic in Britain as he offered tentative hopes the current jabs will still confer some degree of protection against the variant. He also said a new vaccine could be developed “very rapidly” if required because they now have a “well-oiled” process.
Pfizer/BioNTech, which has produced a vaccine against Covid-19, is already studying the new variant’s ability to evade vaccines.
Experts have said vaccines can be tweaked to tackle new variants as they emerge.
What is the UK government doing to control the variant?
Perhaps having learnt from its less than hasty rush to curb travel from India when the Delta variant first found there caused concern, the UK government has placed South Africa under red list travel restrictions, effective from midday on Friday.
The ban will also cover flights from Namibia, Lesotho, Botswana, Eswatini and Zimbabwe. Scotland confirmed all arrivals from the countries must self-isolate and take two PCR tests from midday on Friday, while anyone arriving after 4am on Saturday will need to stay at a managed quarantine hotel.
Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Angola will face travel restrictions from Sunday.
The red list had previously been scrapped earlier this month, with final countries being taken off the list.
Recent arrivals from southern Africa will also be tracked down and offered tests in an effort to avoid the introduction of the new strain.
Speaking to the BBC, transport secretary Grant Shapps said the government was taking “a safety-first approach”.
“We can’t take risks when we see a variant that could well defeat the vaccine.
“We need just a bit of time to check that out with the scientists”.
Between 500 and 700 people typically travel to the UK from South Africa each day.
What are other countries doing?
Israel also announced it will ban its citizens from travelling to the same six countries and has also barred travellers from Mozambique, while the European Commission has announced plans to stop flights from the region.
What happens next?
The World Health Organisation (WHO) is continuing to assess the variant.
If it is upgraded to a variant of concern, it will likely be referred to as Nu, the next available letter in the Greek Alphabet. However, it could also be classed as a less serious variant of interest and it could take weeks to generate all the information needed to properly assess it, including the extent to which it could bypass vaccines.
Some variants that were identified in the past caused initial concern but then were outflanked by others and disappeared, so whether Nu causes the world to grind to a halt once more is a matter of time to decide.