Several British experts on Saturday questioned the previous day’s information that a new type of coronavirus was identified in Britain a few months ago that could cause slightly more deaths than the previous version.
This information was provided by Prime Minister Boris Johnson at a press conference held in Downing Street on Friday evening. At the same press conference, Sir Patrick Vallance, chief scientific advisor to the UK government, also explained in detail that there is no “very strong” evidence for all cases of coronavirus that the new variant – in addition to being 30-70 percent more contagious than the old one It may lead to more deaths.
For example, the attorney general said, for men in their 60s, about ten in every thousand patients with coronavirus are likely to die from infection with the original virus variant, and about 13 to 14 years are likely to die from infection with the new coronavirus. alternative.
However, Sir Patrick also emphasized that there is a lot of uncertainty about these numbers, and a lot of investigation is needed to find out if this is really the case.
The information was based on a study by Nervtag, a British government advisory body focused on researching the risks of respiratory viral infections, which indicated that a new variant of the Coronavirus could be more likely to die.
But on Saturday, one of the study’s authors, Professor Graham Medley, described it also as an open-ended question in a statement to BBC Radio. New virus variant It is more severe in terms of fatalities than the previously specified version, MTI wrote.
Mike Tildesley, a member of the UK government’s Standards Scientific Advisory Board (SAGE) on epidemiological modeling, told the BBC on Saturday that it was too early to draw “strong conclusions” from the study data so far, especially given the increase in the hypothesis is based. On a relatively small dataset, he says it is “somewhat surprising” that Prime Minister Boris Johnson made this assumption, rather than waiting another week or two for experts to closely examine the data.
Yvonne Doyle, medical director of Public Health England (PHE), said on the BBC’s Saturday show that it was still not entirely clear whether the new variant of the coronavirus would lead to more deaths than the previously known variant. In his words, there are some indications that might suggest this, but it is based on very early investigations, in a small number of cases, so “it is not yet time” for any statement to be made.
The latest UK data continues to show a steady and significant slowdown in the rate of spread of coronavirus infection.
According to a report released by the British Department of Health on Saturday, 260,098 cases of coronavirus were tested across the UK in the past week. This is 79,858, 23.5 percent less than the number of new infections discovered in the same period a week ago. According to the ministry, nationwide 5,861,351 people received the first dose of the Coronavirus vaccination, and 468,616 people received the second dose.
