Could this be the on that bypasses the vaccines?
Site for tracking the virus world wide:
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
As CBS News correspondent Debora Patta reports, there’s serious concern among experts that the new strain could set back the fight against the pandemic.
South African officials say the variant, which has more mutations than previously detected strains that have emerged around the world, marks a huge “jump in the evolution” of the virus since the global health crisis began two years ago.
The concern is that it could be more transmissible and or more resistant to the current vaccine formulas, according to public health expert Professor Salim Abdool Karim.
“If this variant is as, or more transmissible than the Delta variant, it will be very difficult to anticipate it, to do anything different to what we have seen, which is that it would grow and spread across the world,” he told CBS News.
South African scientists have been working around the clock this week to determine just how bad the new variant, which thus far is being referred to only as B.1.1.529, really is. Lab results are still a few weeks away. But despite the World Health Organization’s call for “a risk-based and scientific approach” as it urged nations not to adopt travel restrictions yet, some countries decided not to wait for the detailed scientific analysis. Britain, France and Israel have cancelled direct flights from South Africa and surrounding nations. So far fewer than 100 cases of the new variant have been confirmed, largely among young people in South Africa, who have the lowest vaccination rate in the country.
A mutation possibly derived from an aids infected person.
The novel variant of out of South Africa is highly mutated, several countries, including the U.K. and Israel, have initiated travel bans from the region. The unusual nature of this variant and the reported amount of mutations mean that scientists don’t know how well the present crop of vaccines will work against it.
