'Nu' Covid-19 variant from Southern Africa spooks world, crashing markets

WASHINGTON: Markets crashed at the opening and the gates of travel and trade began shuttering again after reports of a new Covid-19 variant B.1.1.529 that is said to be more mutated and more transmittable than previous ones spooked the world.
Even as the World Health Organisation took a cautious stand in its early assessment, saying it would need weeks to study the variant, countries rushed to ban travel from Southern Africa amid reports the virus had mutated in Botswana and made its way out of South Africa.
Major US stock indices fell between 1.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent on news of the variant and its lethality, which is yet to be confirmed. Scientists and epidemiologists expressed concern but cautioned against overreaction, saying vaccines would continue to remain effective for now.
"Every few months, we hear about a new variant. Most turn out to not be much. Well, unfortunately, there's a new variant B.1.1.529 that is concerning," Dr Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University School of Public Health, tweeted on Friday morning, while millions of Americans rushed to stores to feast on Black Friday sales. South African scientists reported a "very unusual constellation of mutations" in the virus to the WHO.

Dr Jha said the initial data on the virus' transmissibility looks "worrisome" but it is by no means certain if the variant causes more severe disease. "There are a series of mutations in key regions that may impact effectiveness of our vaccines. Render vaccines useless? No. Super unlikely," he added.

A more alarming assessment came from epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding, who tweeted, "My god—the new #B11259 variant being possibly ~500% more competitively infectious is the most staggering stat yet. Also, #NuVariant has more than >2x the number of bad spike mutations than Delta." Nu is the Greek code name WHO is expected to give the variant.
"Looks like vaccine evasion could be real with this variant," Feigl-Ding tweeted, referring to two patients in Hong Kong who had the variant despite being doubled-vaxxed.
Stray cases were reported from as far apart as Hong Kong and Israel from individuals who had travelled to Southern Africa. But one case reported from Belgium, the first in Europe, involved a young woman who developed symptoms 11 days after travelling to Egypt via Turkey.
Although the World Health Organization cautioned countries against hastily imposing travel restrictions linked to the new variant, saying they should take a "risk-based and scientific approach," Britain led the way in shutting down travel from Southern Africa.
UK's health minister Sajid Javid said flights to the UK from South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Botswana, Eswatini and Zimbabwe will be suspended from mid-day Friday and all six countries will be added to the red list -- meaning UK residents and British and Irish nationals arriving home from those points of departure must undergo a 10-day hotel quarantine at their own expense.
The European Commission recommends member states suspend all flights from countries where the new Covid-19 variant has been detected.