The director for the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said on Sunday that the spread of delta plus coronavirus variant infections in the United Kingdom will not force a ban on flights from Britain and Europe.
In an interview, the medical professional said that the agency was not anticipating implementing an air travel ban from the UK and Europe. She said that her team was monitoring the science of the variant very carefully and did not expect such a response.
Delta Plus Variant
Last month, British scientists first identified the delta plus variant and is considered a relative of the original and highly transmissive delta variant that caused a massive surge of infections in the United States this summer. Due to not being a variant of interest or concern as of yet, authorities have not given it a Greek alphabet-based name. The UN health agency is currently monitoring about 20 variations of the delta variant worldwide.
The United States had a "handful" of cases linked to the delta plus variant, or the AY.4.2 sublineage of the delta variant, Walensky said. However, the official said the situation in America is not as bad as that in the UK. There has been no increased transmissibility or decreased effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccines related to the new variant, the New York Post reported.
The growing concerns over the UK's rising number of infections are a result of the new variant and the announcement of "Freedom Day." The day is when authorities lifted the majority of COVID-19 restrictions in England on July 19. Since then, the cases continued to rise while hospitalizations and deaths related to the coronavirus were relatively low.
The situation came as the country's vaccination rollout was internationally regarded as a success by other nations. There were more than 50,000 infections recorded in the UK on Thursday in a single day. It was the highest single-day count since mid-July and represented a number higher than the combined records in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
Surge of Coronavirus Infections
The country also recorded 115 deaths and observed a death toll of 223 people on Tuesday, which is the highest the region has recorded since March. The news comes as the UK Office for National Statistics revealed that about 1 in 55 people in England were allegedly infected in the week up to Oct. 16. This means that in that week alone, roughly one million people may have been infected, NBC News reported.
The director of the Genetics Institute at University College London, Francois Ballous, said the new variant could be 10% to 15% more contagious than the delta strain. The latter first appeared in India and spread much faster than diseases such as Ebola, SARS, MERS, and the 1918 Spanish flu, said the CDC.
Walensky said the delta variant had an R-naught, which is the reproductive rate, of eight or nine, which means that every single person who was infected could spread it to nine other individuals. The medical professional said the original coronavirus infection had an estimated R-naught of about three, CNBC reported.
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