The new COVID-19 strain seems to be spreading. First announced in the United Kingdom about two weeks ago, it has now been seen in 13 other countries including Japan, Canada, and across several countries in the European Union. May God be with us!
While no one is quite sure what is behind this new strain, they are sure that is 70 percent more transmissible than the current one we just got a vaccine for.
The good news is none of the new strains are more fatal than the original one. However, it is as it is claimed to be more transmissible and able to pass on more easily. So, we have to keep up our guards for a little while longer.
The sad part for the Caribbean and Central American region is that we are just now opening our borders for tourists. We can only hope that the near universal protocols of RT-PCR testing for everyone entering our countries continues to be our first and best line of defence.
Vacationing in place and “bubble” tourism is not what visitors want. They want to experience where they are travelling to, even at their own risk. It is them that are spending their money.
At the time of writing this the VUI-202012/01 (the first Variant Under Investigation in December 2020), it is thought to have first appeared in mid-September, also referred to by some experts as the B117 lineage, this has rapidly become the dominant strain in cases of COVID-19 in many parts of the UK.
South Africa reported another new strain which appears to have mutated further than the UK variant. Known as 501.V2, this variant is dominant among new confirmed infections in South Africa.
God apparently is not finished with us yet and he means to prune his tree. I pray God that he has something useful for many of us and he takes only the wicked.