Berlin/London — The new coronavirus strain that emerged in SA is even more problematic than a mutated form that prompted new lockdowns across much of the UK, health authorities in that country said on Monday.

“I’m incredibly worried about the SA variant,” UK health secretary Matt Hancock said on BBC radio Monday, citing a conversation over the Christmas holiday with his counterpart in SA. “One of the reasons they know they’ve got a problem is because, like us, they have an excellent genomic scientific capability to be able to study the details of the virus. And it is even more of a problem than the new UK variant.”..

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