Thousands of new variants of the new coronavirus in the UK

The Department of Public Health England said in a statement on Monday (December 14) that as of December 13, 1,108 cases of COVID-19 with the new variant had been identified, mainly in southern and eastern England

Sharon Peacock, head of the British COVID-19 Genome Consortium (COG-UK), said: “At present, we still have very little evidence for this variant

The team first discovered a new variant of the virus in late September and began to track its spread, but the sudden epidemic of the new variant still surprised experts

Nick Loman, professor of microbial genomics at the University of Birmingham and one of the founders of COG-UK, said: “This variant strain is rising rapidly

Scientists detected 17 mutations in this variant.

Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Foundation's Biomedical Research Foundation, issued a statement on Monday, saying that this development "may be serious" and the impact on the spread of the virus and the efficacy of the vaccine is unclear

However, British COG scientists emphasized that mutations are very common, with various strains appearing and disappearing quickly

Even if the virus mutates, experts believe that it is unlikely to mutate in a way that makes the vaccine ineffective