UK ‘looking carefully’ at Indian coronavirus variant

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday told reporters the U.K. was “looking carefully” at a circulating coronavirus variant first detected in India, while public health officials work to better characterize the strain.

"What we’re doing there is making sure that we are absolutely ruthless in the surge testing, in the door-to-door tracking of any contacts," Johnson said. "At the moment we’re looking carefully at the way the Indian variant seems to function. We don’t see any evidence that it is resistant to the vaccines or in any way more dangerous." The health agency cited evidence suggesting the variant is "at least as transmissible" as the U.K. B.1.1.7 variant, which is believed to spread 50% more easily than the ancestral strain.  The U.K. variant has already been identified as the "most common lineage" in the U.S., according to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).