BRITS shouldn’t be overly concerned about the new Covid-19 variants, a top Professor has said.
But Profession Azeem Majeed said it remained vital that people get vaccinated to minimise the risk of Covid spreading this Winter.
In an interview on GB News Breakfast he said: ““With a virus that causes COVID 19, there are two things to bear in mind. One is that it doesn’t change constantly. So we will face new variants throughout the year and in the future as well. And the second point to bear in mind is that our vaccines still work well against serious illness. So the message is get vaccinated and they’ll help us go through this winter.
“At some point, perhaps we’ll pay less attention to these variants. We’ve now got, you know, pretty much in the population through vaccination and power infection. So over time, I think the variants will have less impact on citizens. It was expected that new variants would pop up all over the place, wasn’t it? It’s a fact of life. These viruses do mutate. And so we’ll see these events arising all over the world constantly.
“Don’t be overly concerned. If you’re vaccinated, you’ll be well protected against serious illness and death. If you’re unwell with an infection like COVID or flu, best stay off work and protect others, but don’t get over anxious.”
His comments came after it emerged, two new Covid variants have been located in the UK which could be immune to current vaccines.
More than than 700 cases of the mutant BQ.1 variant have been detected across the country with a further 18 cases of the so-called XBB variant.
Both XBB and BQ.1 are very immune evasive and may even be immune to current vaccines, experts told The Independent newspaper.
There has been a spike in cases in Singapore, where more than half of the global cases for the XBB variant have been found, so it is thought to be a factor in the rise in infections there.
Both BQ.1 and VBB descend from the highly-transmissible Omicron variant and experts have warned the lack of testing may mean a rise in infections is missed. There have been 717 cases of the BQ.1 variant detected across the country and 18 cases of the XBB variant.
