Variants fuel COVID-19 surge, but scientists voice optimism for vaccines

• COVID-19 cases are surging across the world, fuelled by highly contagious variants of the coronavirus that are popping up far from where they were first detected. The spread of these variants, scientists say, highlights how tiny, random changes in the virus's genetic code threaten to undo progress in beating back a global pandemic that has killed at least three million people. Concerning variants are now spreading in the U.S. and Canada, Europe and Latin America.
• Scientists say variants can be brought under control with now-familiar public health measures such as mask wearing and social distancing, despite evidence that some strains might evade the immune response triggered by vaccination or a past infection.
• In the UK, for instance, where the variant B.1.1.7 drove a deadly outbreak during the winter, new cases have slowed to a trickle after a strict lockdown and rapid vaccination drive.
• Scientists are also hopeful that the current crop of vaccines will at least limit the numbers of people falling gravely ill and dying of COVID-19, even if the variants weaken the vaccines' effectiveness at preventing infection. Vaccine makers are already testing new versions of their shots that are being retuned to attack these new variants. Progress, though, depends on bringing the volume of COVID-19 cases under control, both to save lives and to limit the virus's opportunities to alight upon yet more advantageous mutations that could propel future waves of infection.

India played down new mutant COVID-19 strain to avoid panic - but this may have backfired

• India is in the middle of a ferocious COVID-19 second wave, recording record levels of new COVID-19 cases almost daily, overtaking Brazil to become the second most affected country in the world.
• One of the factors propelling the second wave is the emergence of a new, fast-spreading Indian variant of the virus, which habeen called 'a double mutant variant,' because it has two mutations. It has been found in 61% of samples put through gene sequencing in Maharashtra, the worst hit Indian state, as the Indian Express recently reported, strengthening suspicions that the current case surge in India is powered by this more transmissable strain.
• Labelled B.1.617, the double mutant variant was first detected in India but has now been found in eight countries, with 70% of all samples containing the mutations originating from India.
• There had been early warnings from the eastern region of Maharashtra back in February, when genome sequencing of the infected blood samples found the E848K mutation in a sample from Amravati and the N440K mutation in another from the same place. The E484K mutation seen in the Brazilian and South African variants increases the virus' transmissability. The N440K mutation help the virus evade the body's immune response.
• 'Had it been more widely known that a faster spreading variant was at play and it was capable of immune escape, perhaps more care could have been taken by authorities,' said Gautam Menon who teaches physics and biology at Somepat's Ashoka University.
  

Concerns rise about the spread of a new coronavirus variant in London

• Surge testing has been expanded to four London boroughs as concern grows that the test and trace programme cannot contain a coronavirus variant that has shown signs of vaccine resistance.
• A total of 56 cases of the variant first identified in South Africa were found in the week to April 14, according to data released on Thursday, taking the total confirmed cases since it was first detected in December to 600.
• 'Surge testing works until the day that it doesn't,' said Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, adding that the variant could 'completely devastate us' if health officials were unable to prevent it from spreading nationwide - like B.1.1.7 did at the end of last year.
• While the first case of 501Y.V2 found in Southwark was believed to be linked to the initial cluster in Lambeth and Wandsworth, genomic sequencing indicated that the Barnet case was unconnected.
• The new cases have caused concern in the government as several of those infected had received at least one shot of either the AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccine, suggesting the variant may have been able to resist vaccine protection, according to one test and trace official.

COVID variant pushes Cambodia to brink of national tragedy

• Cambodia is in the grip of its worst outbreak of the coronavirus since the pandemic began more than a year ago, WHO has said, warning that the Southeast Asian nation is on the verge of a national tragedy. In less than a week, cambodia has recorded more than 1,000 cases of the virus and as of last Wednesday 35 people had died.That tally compares with less than 500 cases during the whole first year of the pandemic and no COVID-19 related deaths reported at all.
• On Thursday, the government ordered all residents of Phnom Penh and neighbouring district Ta Khmau to stay at home unless they needed to buy food or seek medical treatment.
• The lockdown comes in the middle of the Khmer New Year, a three-day natioal holiday which usually sees thousands of Cambodians travel to their home provinces to celebrate festivities with families.
• Cambodian health experts said the B.1.1.7 variant - first detected in the UK - mean that unless they can halt the outbreak Cambodia's fragile health system could be at high risk of being overwhelmed, which would have disatrous consequences. The outbreak has been traced back to a quarantine breach by a group who arrived from Dubai, one of the 90 countries where the B.1.1.7 variant has spread to.

India, Brazil grapple with massive COVID-19 surges

• India's cases topped 200,000 today with some of its major cities announcing new restrictions, as Brazil's outbreak continues to overwhelm many of the country's hospitals, a situation Doctors Without Borders said today is a humanitarian catastrophe.
• India reported a single-day record high of 200,739 cases and the burden has pushed the country's oxygen production to full capacity over the last 2 days, with the health ministry nnouncing it now needs to import 50,000 metric tons, according to Reuters. Media reports describe patients waiting for hospital beds to open up and even patients on oxygen being placed two to a bed.
• The new wave of lockdowns is raising fears in India again of a mass exodus from the cities, heightening the risk of people carrying the virus to more rural areas that are not equipped to handle it.
• In Brazil, Doctors Without Borders said intensive care units were at capacity in 21 of its 27 states, and hospitals across the country are struggling with shortages of oxygen for treatment and sedatives for intubation. It also said the country has a critical need for rapid antigen tests to quickly confirm infections in an effort to limit the virus spread.
• Briazil's Fiocruz Institute also warned that the P1 SARS-CoV2 variant fuelling the nation's COVID-19 outbreak, is evolving in ways that would make it more able to evade antibodies. Researchers said the changes are similar to the B1351 variant, first seen in South Africa.