The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, has announced during a press conference that the UK variant of SARS-CoV-2  may be associated with a higher degree of mortality than previous variants as well as spreading more quickly.

During the press conference, Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty and Government Scientific Advisor Sir Patrick Vallance stressed that there are still many unknowns about how the variant can be more transmissible and more dangerous. In the conference, Johnson clarified that the current vaccine approved in the UK continues to be effective against this variant.

Watch the full press conference below:

The story is still developing and we will update it in due course.

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