2020-12-23 17:40:58 GMT2020-12-24 01:40:58(Beijing Time) Sina English
Britain has detected a new variant of the coronavirus in contacts of cases who have traveled from South Africa, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Wednesday.
Hancock also announced more areas in England would be placed into the highest tier of coronavirus restrictions.
South Africa’s health department said last week that a new genetic mutation of the virus had been found and might be responsible for a recent surge in infections there.
“Thanks to the impressive genomic capability of the South Africans, we’ve detected two cases of another new variant of coronavirus here in the UK,” Hancock said. “Both are contacts of cases who have traveled from South Africa over the past few weeks.”
England Expands Tier 4 Lockdowns As Another Mutant COVID Strain Emerges zerohedge.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from zerohedge.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Updated Dec 23, 2020 | 07:17 IST
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has accepted India’s invite to be the Republic Day chief guest in January next year. UK PM Boris Johnson
Key Highlights
The new strain of the Covid-19 virus which is said to be more infectious is likely to have evolved in the UK
There are no data to suggest it had been imported from abroad
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had accepted India s invite to be the Republic Day chief guest
New Delhi: Days after the discovery of a new, potentially more transmissible strain of the coronavirus in the United Kingdom, Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the Chair of the Council of the British Medical Association said that Prime Minister Boris Johnson might not visit India in January for the Republic Day parade.
Pfizer, Moderna testing their vaccines against UK coronavirus strain ANI | Updated: Dec 22, 2020 13:54 IST
Washington [US], December 22 (ANI): Pfizer and Moderna are testing their coronavirus vaccines to see if they work against the new mutated version of the virus that s recently been found in the United Kingdom and other countries, CNN reported. Based on the data to date, we expect that the Moderna vaccine-induced immunity would be protective against the variants recently described in the UK, Moderna said in a statement adding, We will be performing additional tests in the coming weeks to confirm this expectation.
According to CNN, Pfizer said it is now generating data on how well blood samples from people immunized with its vaccine may be able to neutralize the new strain from the UK.
Dec 22, 2020 08:50 GMTForex News
EUR/USD has recovered as markets calm after the initial covid strain-related panic.
The passage of US stimulus and Brexit hopes could boost the euro.
Tuesday’s four-hour chart is showing bulls are in the lead.
“Out of control” – these words by UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock about the new coronavirus strain sent markets tumbling. The variant is around
70% more transmissible and the lack of knowledge about the disease also caused fears, prompting the French government to halt the freight passage between the countries, topping up flight bans.
However,
markets tend to exaggerate and that was the case on Monday. The market sell-off boosted the safe-haven dollar, sending EUR/USD to around 1.2130, but as time passed by, investors returned to their senses.