By the middle of November close to 28% of cases in London were directly attributable to the N501Y strain. “It is becoming the dominant variant; it is beating all the others in terms of transmission,” said Patrick Vallance, chief scientific advisor to the U.K. government.
While N501Y is more contagious, Vallance remains confident the AstraZeneca vaccine will be effective in handling the mutated variant. That said, researchers across the U.K. are monitoring the situation closely.
“The working assumption is that the vaccine response should be adequate for this virus, but we need to keep vigilant about this,” Vallance said.
Recent reporting indicates that the U.K.’s highly contagious N501Y strain has reached American shores, appearing first in Colorado. Experts have announced that two national guard members have contracted the mutated strain.
In both cases, the two guardsmen were working at nursing homes. One guardsman, in his 20’s, has no travel history while the other’s itinerary remains unclear. Experts are concerned the U.K. strain has already reached the wider community, raising red flags across the state of Colorado.
