Scientific director of the Mechnikov Research Institute of Vaccines and Serums, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vitaly Zverev assessed the impact of the British strain of coronavirus on the duration of the coronavirus pandemic. He expressed his opinion in an interview with “Parlamentskaya Gazeta”.
According to his forecast, one should not expect that due to the appearance of a new mutation, the infection of the pandemic will stretch over time and there will be more infected. Zverev stressed that the spread of the virus depends on restrictive measures in the country. So, the UK introduced quarantine late, so the virus can spread faster, not because of its higher contagiousness, but because citizens do not comply with basic rules.
Earlier, the official representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Russia, Melita Vuinovich, said that any mutation of the coronavirus could complicate the situation with the pandemic. She added that the higher ability of the virus to transmit from person to person will require more intensive sanitary and epidemiological measures.
On January 10, Rospotrebnadzor Anna Popova reported that at the end of 2020, one case of infection with the British strain was detected in the country. The first carrier was a Russian living in London, who learned that he was infected with a new strain from the media.
The new coronavirus mutation was first discovered in the UK in September 2020, but it began to spread actively in December. The changes affected the area of the “spike” protein on the surface of the coronavirus, which is responsible for attachment to cells located in the mucous membrane of the lungs and a number of other organs. To date, the British strain has been found in 40 states, territories and regions.
