‘Kent’ Covid-19 variant poses great threat to the world

The coronavirus variant first found in the British region of Kent is likely to sweep around the world and the battle against the virus may get worse and go on for at least a decade, the head of the UK’s genetic surveillance programme said.

The Kent variant has “swept the country” and “it’s going to sweep the world, in all probability,” Sharon Peacock, director of the Covid-19 Genomics UK consortium, told the BBC, Reuters reported.

“Once we get on top of [the virus] or it mutates itself out of being virulent – causing disease – then we can stop worrying about it. But I think, looking in the future, we’re going to be doing this for years. We’re still going to be doing this 10 years down the line, in my view,” Sharon Peacock said.