New Covid variant warning as 'it could be a matter of time' before cases surge
A leading virologist has warned the new Covid-19 variant Pirola has set “alarm bells ringing” after being detected around the world and in Britain.
Professor Stephen Griffin told the Mirror that even if Pirola didn’t seriously take off in the UK, it could likely be the “forebearer” for future, potentially worse variants as Covid showed "no signs of stopping". He admitted that he was “staggered” by the current approach to Covid, pretending it was a seasonal virus despite having already had a number of waves so far this year.
He said: “The perception we’re done with it and the narrative of having to live with it is another way of saying we’re willing to deal with the damage it does.” This he said, included 14,000 deaths with Covid on the death certificate so far this year, long Covid, and hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people having their lives continually upended.
“It’s the opposite of the Emperor’s new clothes, it is there, it’s killing people, and we’re not talking about it,” he warned. The professor also said that people were too focused on individual risk, ignoring how everyone’s actions affected the wider public’s response.
“None of these elements keeping Covid where it is are stable, and immunity will wain and things can get worse,” he added. The UK Health Security Agency announced 34 confirmed cases of BA.2.86, with 28 of those at a single care home in Norfolk.
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There have been no deaths. It said it is too early to draw conclusions on whether it is more serious than past variants.
Similar numbers of BA.2.86 have been detected in countries around the world but because genetic testing capacity is limited the true prevalence is largely unknown.
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Professor Griffin said: “It’s obviously successful because it’s spread round the world, it’s only just emerged into people we know that … so it’s managed to spread round the world very quickly against the background of hugely successful Omicron XBB variants.
“The idea that it’ll burn out could happen, but I suspect it won’t … if you look back, the delta variant was quite similar at the beginning and it had fits and starts, before it really got going.
“It could reach critical conditions. There are very few sequences at the moment but testing bias is very poor.
"It could be a matter of time [until case numbers take off], it could be it doesn’t become very much itself, but it’s another sign we can’t consign this to being a seasonal flu.
“It’s really hard to tell the future with that, if nothing else it’ll be a forebearer for other variants that could outcompete the XBB’s … we keep saying this, we keep seeing these jumps in evolution for the virus, and it shows no sign of stopping.”
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