Experts Worried COVID Mutant Strain Can More Easily Infect Youth
Scientists are concerned that the new mutant strain of coronavirus first found in southeast England can more easily infect children after research showed it had a statistically significant higher rate of infection among youth than other variants, the Independentreported on Monday.
Prof. Neil Ferguson from Imperial College London explained that “There is a hint that it has a higher propensity to infect children. That may perhaps explain some of the differences but we haven't established any sort of causality on that, but we can see that in the data.”
More studies are being conducted to better understand its effects on vaccines and patients, including on children.
Prof. Wendy Barclay, a member of the British government’s advisory group, added that “We're not saying that this is a virus which specifically targets children or is any more specific in its ability to infect children, but we know that COVID was not as efficient in affecting children as it was in adults.”
Scinetists warned over the weekend that the variant has already spread rapidly to the rest of Great Britian and is also present elsewhere around the world, the Financial Times reported.
The World Health Organisation said it is is working in close cooperation with the Brtish authorities to understand how the variant is likely to affect the pandemic.
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