HEALTH officials in the North of Ireland are concerned that the spread of a variant form of coronavirus could have “substantial consequences”, according to the chief scientific adviser here.
Prof Ian Young said the reproduction rate of the virus could rise by between 0.4 and 0.6 as a result.
Health Minister Robin Swann has confirmed a positive case of the new strain had been detected in the North of Ireland.
However, Prof Young said detecting new variants “is not unexpected”.
“This virus gradually changes”, he explained, but “we wouldn’t want it to become well established or the dominant form”.
Prof Young said the current reproduction rate – or R number – is about 1 to 1.2.
R is the number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to, on average.
“If we had the variant form of the virus and we were behaving in the same way, R would probably be closer to 1.6 or 1.8 and clearly that would have substantial consequences,” he said.
“It is a big difference and we are absolutely concerned about this virus,” Prof Young added.
“We can see there are parts of the UK and indeed the Republic of Ireland where R is sitting at that sort of level, that may be due to the variant virus in some cases.
“In other cases it will just be due to how people are interacting with each other, the number of contacts that people have.”
Health authorities here became aware of the new variant “as early as we could have done”, the chief scientific adviser said, adding “it is not inevitable that it will become well established”.
“There has been a very large amount of work done to understand it and understand the spreading.”
Prof Young urged people to be “really careful” during the six weeks of restrictions which begin in NI on 26 December and “to minimise their interactions”.
Prof Sam McConkey, an infectious diseases expert from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, said he is “sceptical” that the Coronavirus variant is “any worse of a disease”.
People urged to maintain social distance, wash hands regularly and wear a mask
Concerns that the variant could be more infectious have led a number of countries, including the Republic of Ireland, to limit travel with Great Britain, where its spread has been detected in the south east of England.
However, Prof McConkey told BBC News NI “the jury’s out” on research that the variant could be more transmissible, possibly by as much as 70%.
Announcing the positive case, Health Minister Robin Swann said the virus could have been in Northern Ireland for some time.
He encouraged people to “redouble our efforts to stop the virus spreading”.
As of Wednesday, there have been 1,240 coronavirus-related deaths in Northern Ireland reported by the Department of Health.
The Irish Department of Health confirmed 938 more cases of Covid-19 and 13 further deaths.
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