Epidemiologists from the Universities of Exeter and Bristol have found that the British strain of coronavirus B.1.1.7 is 30 to 100 percent more deadly than previous strains. This is reported in an article published in the British Medical Journal.
More than one hundred thousand people took part in the study. Scientists compared mortality rates within 28 days after testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 between a group of 54,906 patients with the British strain of SARS-CoV-2 and a group of patients of the same size with other variants of infection. Participants from both groups were matched for age, gender, ethnicity, and other extraneous factors to ensure maximum similarity between the two groups.
Researchers recorded 227 deaths associated with the British strain and 141 deaths due to earlier strains. Thus, the risk of death increased by an average of 1.64 times. It also means an increase in mortality from 2.5 to 4.1 per 1000 detected cases.
According to scientists, SARS-CoV-2 appears to be able to mutate quickly, and there is a real danger that new variants with resistance to vaccines will emerge.
