The U.K. Coronavirus Variant Is Up To 100% More Deadly
One of the COVID-19 variants that originated abroad could be significantly more dangerous than the original strain, a new report published in the British Medical Journal suggests.
The U.K. strain referred to as B.1.1.7, quickly surged to prominence among new COVID-19 infections within the U.K. and is now present in other countries, including the U.S.
To better understand the mortality rate of the U.K. variant, a team of scientists used genomic sequencing within 54,906 paired volunteers who tested positive for COVID-19 between early October 2020 and late January 2021 in a matched cohort study.
The purpose of the matched cohort study is to measure a response between an individual exposed to B.1.1.7 versus an individual who was exposed to an earlier strain.
