New COVID-19 variant causes concern among health experts

LONDON — South African scientists person identified a caller mentation of the coronavirus this week that they accidental is down a caller spike successful COVID-19 infections successful Gauteng, the country's astir populous province.

It's unclear from wherever the caller variant, presently denominated B.1.1.529, really arose. But it was archetypal detected by scientists successful South Africa and has besides been seen successful travelers to Hong Kong and Botswana.

Joe Phaahla, South Africa's wellness minister, said the variant was linked to an "exponential rise" of cases successful the past fewer days, though experts are inactive trying to find if the caller variant is really responsible.

According to NPR, it's not yet wide if the caller variant is much infectious oregon causes a idiosyncratic to declaration a much terrible infection.

CNN reports that that genomic scientists accidental the caller variant has an "unusually high" fig of mutations that origin the microorganism to person much of the cardinal spike proteins it uses to get into the steadfast cells it attacks. NPR says the caller variant besides has doubly arsenic galore mutations arsenic the delta variant, which caused a caller surge successful cases this summer.

The World Health Organization has convened a method radical of experts to determine whether the caller variant warrants being designated a variant of involvement oregon a variant of concern.