GENEVA/ZURICH (Reuters) – The World Health Organization said on Monday it expects to get more detail soon on the potential impact of a highly infectious new coronavirus strain, as a slew of countries closed their borders to Britain over fears about its spread.
There is no evidence the mutated variant of the virus increases the severity of the disease, although it is more transmissible, officials said, citing UK analysis.
Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical lead for COVID-19, said scientists are looking at the body’s antibody response to the virus and she expects results in the coming days and weeks.
Mike Ryan, WHO’s top emergency expert, said countries were acting out of a “precautionary principle” in reaction to the variant and said that was “prudent”.
(Reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva and Michael Shields in Zurich; Writing by Josephine Mason; editing by David Evans)
