As health experts around the world work tirelessly to figure out a new strain of coronavirus, a lady has taken to social media to share details of her brother’s ordeal after he contracted the mutated virus.
The lady who tweets with the handle @Jennydissents revealed on Sunday that her brother woke up blind after he got infected.
Her tweet reads;
My brother has a mutated strain of Covid-19; he woke up BLIND & an ambulance took him to the ER. I guess it’s a rare strain; less than 10% get it. They have no idea how much of his sight he’ll recover. Hopefully all! How terrifying!.
My brother has a mutated strain of Covid-19; he woke up BLIND & an ambulance took him to the ER. I guess it’s a rare strain; less than 10% get it. They have no idea how much of his sight he’ll recover. Hopefully all!
How terrifying! 🥺
— Jenny dissents (@StilettoKitten) December 20, 2020
The lady then went ahead to share a photo of her brother’s eyes which looked reddish with tears.
— Jenny dissents (@StilettoKitten) December 21, 2020
Everything We Currently Know About the New Strain of Covid-19 That’s Sweeping the UK
On Sunday, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the government imposed a strict Christmas lockdown in London and southeast England because a newly identified strain of coronavirus was going “out of control”.
He stressed;
Unfortunately the new strain was out of control. We have got to get it under control.
We’ve got to get it under control and the way we can do that, the only way you can do that, is by restricting social contact.
Cases have absolutely rocketed, so we’ve got a long way to go. I think it will be very difficult to keep it under control until the vaccine has rolled out.
Read Also: Britain Says New COVID-19 Strain ‘Out Of Control’
The new development has forced many European countries like Germany, Ireland, Italy, Austria, Romania, The Netherlands and Belgium to beef up measures against the new variant of COVID-19 by banning international flights to and from UK.
Read Also: European Countries Ban UK Flights Over New COVID-19 Strain
According to reports, scientists first discovered the new variant in a patient in September.
Following initial research, the mutant strain appears to be much more contagious than existing types of the coronavirus, although officials have said it doesn’t appear to cause more severe symptoms.
All viruses mutate all the time, so it is not unexpected that this new variant has emerged.
UK experts say the new COVID-19 strain “moves fast and is becoming the dominant variant”, causing over 70% of infections in London by December.
The strain is also a matter of concern because it has so many mutations – nearly two dozen – and some are on the spiky protein that the virus uses to attach to and infect cells. That spike is what current vaccines target.
Read Also: Pfizer/BioNTech Vaccine: UK To Start COVID-19 Vaccinations On Tuesday
The variant can be found across the UK, except Northern Ireland, but it is heavily concentrated in London, the South East and eastern England.
Dr Bharat Pankhania, Senior Clinical Lecturer at Exeter University said “urgent action” needed to be taken and that previous responses had been far too reactive than proactive.
It’s not clear whether the virus mutated in the UK or was merely detected there first thanks to the country’s world class genomic analysis facilities.
Scientists first warned UK government about the new strain on Friday, and by going over past tests say it has been circulating at least as early as September.
It wasn’t until this week that officials felt they had enough evidence to declare that it has higher transmissibility than other circulating viruses.
