![\"Transmitted](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2021\/01\/15\/10\/38011724-9150583-Transmitted_around_the_world_The_yellow_indicates_the_spread_of_-a-24_1610705743317.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBritain could face even more super-infectious coronavirus variants because surging infections across the globe fuel the chances of the pathogen mutating to beat the immune system and vaccines, scientists say.<\/p>\n
More than 90million Covid-19 cases have been recorded worldwide since the pandemic began, with numbers surging 33.8 per cent in the last two months alone. \u00a0<\/p>\n
And the spiralling cases will only trigger more mutations because it gives the virus more opportunity to evolve, infectious disease experts fear. Mutations could render vaccines useless, experts fear. Number 10’s top scientists believe the current crop of jabs will still work against any of the recently-spotted variants – but may be slightly less effective.<\/p>\n
Britain has already been hit by two highly-infectious variants, including one that first emerged in Kent and another that was brought in from South Africa. Fears are also growing about a new Brazilian variant, which has yet to be spotted in the UK.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Kent variant – called B.1.1.7 – quickly became the most dominant coronavirus in the UK, and its rapid spread spooked ministers into a national lockdown. Thirty-six cases of a second super-strain from South Africa – named B.1.351 – have also been spotted in Britain.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And the US, which has battled against the most cases during the pandemic, has revealed its labs have identified three home-grown variants of the virus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the\u00a0University of Washington, warned labs across the world were recording more variants of the virus because of the spiralling numbers of infections.\u00a0He told DailyMail.com: ‘The uptick in mutations (we are seeing) is expected because there is more circulation of the virus and more chances for a mutation to occur.’\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Scientists fear the mutations could dodge immunity sparked by vaccines. There is no evidence to suggest that any of the variants are more deadly but they will still trigger more fatalities because they will likely infect more people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Spreading super-strain: Above is the spread of a mutant US version of the virus in July and August last year (left) compared to November and December last year (right). The dates are laid out in the US form of month\/day\/year<\/p>\n
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Transmitted around the world: The yellow indicates the spread of a super-strain of the virus first identified in the US. It is now also in Australia and New Zealand<\/p>\n
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Graphs from the World Health Organization showing infections with coronavirus began to spiral worldwide in September<\/p>\n
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All viruses evolve in order to survive. There have been many mutations in Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, since it emerged in 2019, some more significant than others.<\/p>\n
However, this is to be expected as this virus is an RNA virus, like the flu and measles, and these tend to mutate and change.<\/p>\n
Mutations usually occur by chance, and the pressure on the virus to evolve is increased by the fact that so many millions of people have now been infected.<\/p>\n
Sometimes mutations can lead to weaker versions of a virus, and it could even be that the changes are so small they have little impact on how it behaves. But the\u00a0new UK variant is more transmissible, and it is thought the same may be true of the Brazilian variant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Professor Trevor Bedford, who studies viruses and how they evolve at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, said that new strains of the virus appear to be evolving in the same direction.<\/p>\n
He tweeted: ‘After 10 months of relative (inactivity) we’ve started to see some striking evolution of SARS-CoV-2 with a repeated evolutionary pattern in the SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern emerging from the UK, South Africa and Brazil.<\/p>\n
![\"Mutations](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2021\/01\/15\/10\/36865722-9150583-Mutations_of_the_virus_have_also_been_identified_in_the_US_South-a-26_1610705912468.jpg\")
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Mutations of the virus have also been identified in the US, South Africa and Brazil (stock pic. It highlights the spike protein, which the virus uses to invade cells)\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘The variant emerging in the UK possesses eight mutations in its spike protein (which the virus uses to invade cells), a three amino acid (the building blocks for protein) deletion and a knockout mutation.<\/p>\n
‘The variant emerging in South Africa has seven mutations on its (spike protein) as well as the same three amino acid deletions.<\/p>\n
‘The variant emerging in Brazil has 10 mutations on its (spike protein) as well as the same three amino acid deletions.’<\/p>\n
Suggesting that long infections ‘are giving the virus an opportunity to mutate within the same host’, he added: ‘Hints that these (mutations) are related to chronic infections come from multiple sources.<\/p>\n
‘First off, we have direct sequencing of viruses from chronic infections that show rapid evolution.<\/p>\n
The US now has three of its own homegrown ‘super-covid’ variants that are more infectious than the most common coronavirus types in the US – and the new variants are spreading like wildfire in at least one state.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Two variants were identified by Ohio scientists on Wednesday and the third by Illinois researchers on Thursday.<\/p>\n
One of the new, more infectious variants has already become dominant in Columbus, Ohio, where it was discovered.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
So far, this homegrown variant has been seen in about 20 samples since Ohio State University (OSU) scientists first detected it in December.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It’s now present in most of the samples they are sequencing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A second variant has mutations virtually identical to the UK variant’s, but arose completely independently on American soil, according to Ohio State University scientists.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just one person with this variant has been found.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The third new variant was discovered by a\u00a0team from Southern Illinois\u00a0University Carbondale.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The earliest appearance of new variant, called 20C-US, was traced back to\u00a0Texas in May 2020.<\/p>\n
It began picking up prevalence in late June and early July 2020 and could be responsible for up to 50% of all current cases.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘Indeed, this particular chronic infection evolved some of the exact same mutations seen in these variant viruses.’\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chronic COVID-19 infections – not to be confused with ‘long-covid,’ symptoms that may linger months after someone clears the virus – may last weeks or even months, and most commonly affect people with weak immune systems.<\/p>\n
Dr Mokdad added that cutting the dose of a vaccine or only giving the first dose of them to patients could further boost the risk of the virus mutating.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘You want [a vaccine] to knock down the virus very, very low,’ he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘We don’t want to get this virus used to something in small doses so the virus can develop immunity, we want to make sure that when the virus comes into contact with these immune antibodies, it loses every time, and fast.’<\/p>\n
A team from Southern Illinois<\/a> University Carbondale traced the earliest appearance of new variant, called 20C-US, to Texas<\/a> in May 2020.<\/p>\n
The variant carries several mutations, including to the spike protein, which the virus uses to enter and infect human cells.<\/p>\n
Scientists say the variant has not spread significantly beyond the country’s borders, and that is most highly prevalent in the Upper Midwest.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What’s more, it could be responsible for at least 50 percent of all American cases, meaning it is very widespread.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The researchers predict that 20C-US may be the most dominant variant of the coronavirus in the U.S. at this moment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
20C-US is now one of the growing list of mutations discovered in countries such as the UK, South Africa and Brazil.<\/p>\n
The news comes just one day after Ohio researchers announced the first discovery of two homegrown variants – one virtually identical to a variant that emerged in the UK and the other completely unique to the U.S. and dominant in the capital of Columbus.<\/p>\n
The results were published in a pre-print article on bioRxiv.org <\/a>on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Led by Dr Keith Gagnon, an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at SIU, the team first noticed the possibility of the new variant while looking at genome sequencing data from Illinois.<\/p>\n
‘We were just looking at our local, like state-specific Illinois data…and we were asked [by the Illinois Department of Public Health] to specifically look for the spike protein mutations of the UK variant for example,’ he told DailyMail.com.<\/p>\n
‘As we’re going through the data, we’re not seeing a UK variant but I keep seeing this large outbranching off the final genetic tree that we reconstructed.’\u00a0<\/p>\n
Of the viral genome samples taken from March to the present that were sequenced, one variant was more pronounced than the rest.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hero waitress explains how she saved boy from child abuse<\/p>\n
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Waitress calls 911 after she notices parents not feeding child<\/p>\n
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Incredible moment roof snow avalanche occurs after multiple nudges<\/p>\n
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Woman who had nervous breakdown locked in cage for five years<\/p>\n
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MAGA protesters walk up Capitol steps in ‘ranger file’<\/p>\n
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Qanon Shaman poses for pictures inside Capitol building<\/p>\n
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Family get a shock after pride of lions entered their house<\/p>\n
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Capitol rioter shouts ‘Death is the only remedy’ for Congress<\/p>\n
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Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetty have awkward tense exchange<\/p>\n
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AOC talks about possible commission to ‘rein in’ media<\/p>\n
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Sprawling Ohio mansion of Victoria’s Secret mogul Les Wexner<\/p>\n
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Golden retriever holds note asking for stolen friend to be returned<\/p>\n
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Name:<\/span> B.1.1.248 or<\/span> P.1<\/p>\n Date:<\/span>\u00a0Discovered in Tokyo, Japan, in four travellers arriving from Manaus, Brazil, on January 2.<\/p>\n Is it in the UK? <\/span>Public health officials and scientists randomly sample around 1 in 10 coronavirus cases in the UK and they have not yet reported any cases of B.1.1.248, but this doesn’t rule it out completely.<\/p>\n Why should we care?<\/span>\u00a0The variant has the same spike protein mutation as the highly transmissible versions found in Kent and South Africa \u2013 named N501Y \u2013 which makes the spike better able to bind to receptors inside the body.<\/p>\n It has a third, less well-studied mutation called K417T, and the ramifications of this are still being researched.\u00a0<\/p>\n What do the mutations do?<\/span><\/p>\n The N501Y <\/span>mutation makes the spike protein better at binding to receptors in people’s bodies and therefore makes the virus more infectious.\u00a0<\/p>\n Exactly how much more infectious it is remains to be seen, but scientists estimate the similar-looking variant in the UK is around 56 per cent more transmissible than its predecessor.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even if the virus doesn’t appear to be more dangerous, its ability to spread faster and cause more infections will inevitably lead to a higher death rate.<\/p>\n Another key mutation in the variant, named E484K<\/span>, is also on the spike protein and is present in the South African variant.\u00a0<\/p>\n E484K may be associated with an ability to evade parts of the immune system called antibodies, researchers from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro said in a scientific paper published online.<\/p>\n However, there are multiple immune cells and substances involved in the destruction of coronavirus when it gets into the body so this may not translate to a difference in how people get infected or recover.<\/p>\n Will our vaccines still protect us?<\/span><\/p>\n There is no reason to believe that already-developed Covid vaccines will not protect against the variant.<\/p>\n The main and most concerning change to this version of the virus is its N501Y mutation.<\/p>\n Pfizer, the company that made the first vaccine to get approval for public use in the UK, has specifically tested its jab on viruses carrying this mutation in\u00a0 a lab after the variants emerged in the UK and South Africa.<\/p>\n They found that the vaccine worked just as well as it did on other variants and was able to ignore the change.<\/p>\n And, as the South African variant carries another of the major mutations on the Brazilian strain (E484K) and the Pfizer jab worked against that, too, it is likely that the new mutation would not affect vaccines.\u00a0<\/p>\n The immunity developed by different types of vaccine is broadly similar, so if one of them is able to work against it, the others should as well.<\/p>\n Professor Ravi Gupta, a microbiologist at the University of Cambridge, said: ‘Vaccines are still likely to be effective as a control measure if coverage rates are high and transmission is limited as far as possible.’<\/p>\n To see if it was present at the the national level, researchers randomly subsampled 3.3 percent of U.S. genomes available on the global genomic database GISAID.\u00a0<\/p>\n The earliest appearance was found from a sample taken in the greater Houston area of Texas on May 20, 2020.<\/p>\n ‘The crazy thing is it’s been around for months, I would say largely unnoticed, uncharacterized,’ Gagnon said.<\/p>\n ‘It wasn’t that it wasn’t undetected…but nobody I think really picked up on it.’\u00a0<\/p>\n Following the variant over time, there was a notable expansion in the variant’s presence in late June and early July 2020, which coincides with America’s second wave of the pandemic, in states such as Wisconsin and Illinois.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n However, between November 1 and December 31, almost 50 percent of all sequenced genomes from the U.S. are the new variant.<\/p>\n ‘It is coincidental that the rise to dominance of this variant really started at the end of the summer and especially during the third pandemic wave,’ Gagnon said.<\/p>\n ‘It is tempting to speculate that possibly this variant is playing a role. The circumstantial evidence suggests that.’\u00a0<\/p>\n Researchers suggest this means 20C-US has ‘surpassed 50 percent penetrance to become the most dominant variant in the U.S.’<\/p>\n However, it has a high prevalent in the eastern and Midwestern regions and has no t spread widely to the western half of the U.S.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n 20C-US has been reported in other countries including Australia, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand, but at low levels.<\/p>\n The first mutations the virus showed were in genes\u00a0related to virus particle maturation – a process by which a virus breaks from a host cell and activates to infect more cells – and the\u00a0\u00a0processing of viral proteins.<\/p>\n Gagnon says these are all important for virus production.<\/p>\n Since then, the new variant has formed two new mutations in the spike protein, which demonstrates that it is evolving.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, the variant does not appear to be more deadly.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘Even more speculative, but interesting, is we notice that the death rates are a lot lower even though cases are very high,’ Gagnon said.<\/p>\n This may suggest 20C-US\u00a0is highly transmissible but only causes a mild illness.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Dr Daniel Jones, of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, who discovered the Columbus variant told DailyMail.com the Illinois variant ‘looks closely related but not exactly identical.’<\/p>\n Jones said this means the two sets of researchers – in Ohio and Illinois – are likely tracking variants from the same outgrowth.<\/p>\n With the first doses of newly approved vaccines being administered across the national, Gagnon said it is unknown whether the\u00a0variant will impact its effectiveness.<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘Based on the mutations so far, I don\u2019t think it will significantly impact the vaccine\u2019s effectiveness,’ he said.<\/p>\n ‘The catch is that the virus continues to evolve, and since May, it has acquired three mutations, and two of them are in the spike protein, one of which might affect antibody binding. There are a lot of unknowns.’\u00a0<\/p>\n Both Pfizer and Moderna have been testing their vaccines against the international variants and say they expect the jabs to provide protection.\u00a0<\/p>\n Brazil ‘collapses’ under Covid as new variant sees epidemic surge: Relatives are forced to supply oxygen for patients, doctors decide who gets to breathe and Amazon’s largest city turns into a ‘suffocation chamber’<\/span><\/p>\n Brazil<\/a>‘s new strain of coronavirus<\/a> is ripping through the Amazon where tearful locals wait desperately for dwindling oxygen supplies to keep their relatives alive and doctors face the wretched task of deciding who can breathe.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n At one hospital in Manaus, a despairing relative carried an oxygen tank for his own mother-in-law just to help her breathe for another two hours – with one expert describing the city as a ‘suffocation chamber’.\u00a0<\/p>\n Infections have soared to record levels in Brazil with the new variant feared to be the dominant strain in the state of Amazonas and described by one expert as ‘very probably’ more contagious than the previous type.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The variant has already been detected as far afield as Japan and spooked UK ministers into shutting down travel from the whole of South America, after another new strain was blamed for a dramatic surge in cases in Britain.<\/p>\n In Manaus, whose mass graves became a symbol of the first wave of the pandemic in Brazil, cemeteries are again burying record number of patients as the new strain causes a total ‘collapse’ of the healthcare system.\u00a0<\/p>\n The virus was so rife during the first wave that one study suggested more than 70 per cent of Manaus’s population had been infected – raising fears that the new strain has evaded any immunity acquired from earlier infections.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In the latest outbreak, hundreds of patients are being airlifted to other states while some non-Covid sufferers are being evicted from their beds to make way for those in greater need.\u00a0<\/p>\n Doctors and relatives have described ‘nightmare’ scenes of medical workers breaking down in tears.\u00a0And with nearly 500 people still waiting for beds in Manaus, some elderly virus sufferers are being left to die at home.\u00a0<\/p>\n Heartbreaking: Relatives of patients being treated at the 28 de Agosto hospital in Manaus share a tearful hug as the healthcare system in the Amazon’s largest city faces ‘collapse’ and a dire shortage of oxygen\u00a0<\/p>\n Emergency: Healthcare workers transport a 77-year-old patient on a stretcher at a Manaus hospital after he came down with coronavirus symptoms, as a new strain which is feared to be more contagious spreads across the Amazon\u00a0<\/p>\n Overwhelmed: Gravediggers wearing green and yellow hazmat suits bury a foil-wrapped coffin at the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery in Manaus, with mourning relatives having to queue to bury their dead\u00a0<\/p>\n A municipal healthcare worker covers the body of an 84-year-old Brazilian who died at home during the deadly outbreak\u00a0<\/p>\n An oxygen cylinder is wheeled into the Getulio Vargas hospital amid drastic shortages of the substance needed to treat coronavirus patients suffering breathing problems\u00a0<\/p>\n As the oxygen crisis mounts, Brazil’s health minister Eduardo Pazuello said a plane full of medical supplies would arrive on Friday, followed by four others, but it was not clear whether this would be enough to fill the gap.\u00a0<\/p>\n The city has ‘run out of oxygen and some health centers have become a type of suffocation chamber,’ said Jessem Orellana from the Fiocruz-Amazonia scientific investigation institute.\u00a0<\/p>\n The oxygen provider in Manaus, White Martins, said it was considering diverting some of its supply from neighbouring Venezuela – while military personnel delivered 400 oxygen cylinders to Amazonas in five days.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the Hospital Universitario Getulio Vargas, health workers took empty cylinders to the oxygen provider in the hope there would be some to retrieve.\u00a0<\/p>\n Patients waited anxiously in the hospital as oxygen arrived in time to save some, but too late for others. In echoes of the worst days of the crisis in Europe, doctors were having to decide which patients to treat.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘Yes, there is a collapse in the health care system in Manaus,’ the health minister said. ‘The line for beds is growing by a lot – we have 480 people waiting now. ‘We are starting to remove patients with less serious [conditions] to reduce the impact.’\u00a0<\/p>\n Harrowing accounts were emerging of patients who died with no oxygen, with one grieving relative telling Globo<\/a>: ‘You have no idea what it was like… the shouting, people were dying. Even health professionals, everyone was crying.’\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘The oxygen stopped, the patients were dying on the stretchers and the nurses did not know what to do,’ another relative said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The new variant, described by the WHO as ‘worrying’, is feared to be more contagious and to have spread throughout Brazil and possibly further – with Britain shutting down travel from South America on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a move that prompted consternation in Portugal, transport secretary Grant Shapps said travel from the EU nation would also be halted because of its links with Brazil, although there are exemptions for truck drivers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cases in Brazil are at their highest level ever, with more than 360,000 in the last week alone, while the daily death rate is hovering around 1,000 for the first time since the first wave peaked in the Southern Hemisphere winter.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n At least one cemetery in Manaus, a city of 2.2million people, had mourners queuing up to enter and\u00a0bury their dead, with Brazilian artists and football teams joining the cry for help.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to official figures, Manaus on Wednesday saw a fourth straight day of record burials – 198, with 87 of them deaths from Covid-19.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hero waitress explains how she saved boy from child abuse<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/li>\n Waitress calls 911 after she notices parents not feeding child<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/li>\n Incredible moment roof snow avalanche occurs after multiple nudges<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/li>\n Woman who had nervous breakdown locked in cage for five years<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n MAGA protesters walk up Capitol steps in ‘ranger file’<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/li>\n Qanon Shaman poses for pictures inside Capitol building<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/li>\n Family get a shock after pride of lions entered their house<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/li>\n Capitol rioter shouts ‘Death is the only remedy’ for Congress<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetty have awkward tense exchange<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/li>\n AOC talks about possible commission to ‘rein in’ media<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/li>\n Sprawling Ohio mansion of Victoria’s Secret mogul Les Wexner<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/li>\n Golden retriever holds note asking for stolen friend to be returned<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n A woman is comforted outside a Manaus hospital as armed personnel keep order during a disastrous outbreak in the city\u00a0<\/p>\n Medical workers wearing white hazmat suits examine the body of 53-year-old Shirlene Morais Costa, who died after suffering coroanvirus symptoms at home in Manaus\u00a0<\/p>\n A tiny stretcher brings in a baby suspected of having Covid-19 at the HRAN hospital in the federal capital Brasilia on Thursday<\/p>\n Vitor Cabral comforts his wife Raissa Floriana after her father was hospitalised with Covid-19 at the 28 de Agosto hospital<\/p>\n Hospitals in Manaus admitted few new Covid-19 patients on Thursday, suggesting many will suffer from the disease at home, and some will likely die.<\/p>\n Park of the Tribes, a community of more than 2,500 indigenous people on the outskirts of Manaus, went more than two months without any resident showing Covid-19 symptoms.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the past week, 29 people have tested positive for the coronavirus, said Vanda Ortega, a volunteer nurse in the community. Two went to urgent care units, but no one yet has required hospitalization.<\/p>\n ‘We’re really very worried,’ said Ortega, who belongs to the Witoto ethnicity. ‘It’s chaos here in Manaus. There isn’t oxygen for anyone.’<\/p>\n The crisis has prompted the government in Amazonas to transport 235 patients who depend on oxygen to five other states and the federal capital Brasilia.<\/p>\n ‘I want to thank those governors who are giving us their hand in a human gesture,’ Amazonas governor Wilson Lima said at a news conference on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘All of the world looks at us when there is a problem [with] the Earth’s lungs,’ he said, using a poetic term for the Amazon. ‘Now we are asking for help. Our people need this oxygen.’<\/p>\n Governors and mayors throughout the country offered help amid a flood of social media videos in which distraught relatives of Covid-19 patients in Manaus begged for people to buy them oxygen.\u00a0<\/p>\n A woman cries during a protest outside the 28 Agosto hospital in Manaus, where authorities are planning to transport scores of patients to other states and the federal capital Brasilia\u00a0<\/p>\n Cemetery workers carry the remains of 89-year-old Abilio Ribeiro, who died of the coronavirus, into a grave in Manaus\u00a0<\/p>\n Military police officers patrol the streets in Manaus after a 7pm curfew was imposed to tackle the crisis in the Amazonian city\u00a0<\/p>\n Amazonas authorities have even appealed to the United States to send a military transport plane to Manaus with oxygen cylinders, a Brazilian congressman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n But there are growing demands Brazil’s federal government to do more, with president Jair Bolsonaro under pressure to act after long downplaying the dangers of Covid-19.\u00a0<\/p>\n Federal prosecutors in Manaus have asked a local judge to pressure Bolsonaro’s administration to step up its support, saying that an air force plane for oxygen transportation ‘needs repair, which brought a halt to the emergency influx’.\u00a0<\/p>\n Local authorities recently called on the federal government to reinforce Manaus’ stock of oxygen, while the air force said it was deploying two planes to transport patients.<\/p>\n During the first wave of the crisis, Manaus consumed a maximum 30,000 cubic metres of oxygen per day, but now the need has more than doubled to nearly 70,000 cubic metres, according to White Martins.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘Due to the strong impact of the Covid -19 pandemic, the consumption of oxygen in the city increased exponentially over the last few days in comparison with a volume that was already extremely high,’ White Martins said. ‘Demand is much higher than anything predictable and… continues to grow significantly.’<\/p>\n The company added that Manaus’ remote location presents challenging logistics, requiring additional stocks to be transported by boat and by plane.<\/p>\n Governor Lima – once seen as an ally of Bolsonaro – has also decreed more health restrictions, including the suspension of public transport and a curfew between 7pm and 6am.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lima said the state was ‘in the most critical moment of the pandemic’ as he announced the 10-day curfew beginning on Friday, saying that ‘we are in a war operation’.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘Here there aren’t any empty beds left, any oxygen tanks, nothing – all we have left is faith,’ Manaus resident Luiza Castro said.\u00a0<\/p>\n A struggling patient is transported by medical workers at the Getulio Vargas hospital in Manaus where health workers have been taking empty cylinders to a local oxygen provider in the hope there would be some available\u00a0<\/p>\n A man breaks down outside the 28 de Agosto hospital as Manaus faces a shortage of bed space and oxygen supplies\u00a0<\/p>\n A man walks on an empty street in Manaus after the governor of Amazonas imposed the curfew to curb the infection rate\u00a0<\/p>\n Bolsonaro, a right-wing former army captain often compared to Donald Trump, has raged against lockdowns and described the virus as a ‘little flu’, laughing off the dangers even when he himself was infected with the disease.\u00a0<\/p>\n He has also flouted social distancing by appearing at rallies of his supporters, and touted the unproven anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19.\u00a0<\/p>\n Felipe Naveca, an expert studying coronavirus mutations in Amazonas, said the new strain was ‘very probably’ more contagious than the original virus, just like new variants found in Britain and South Africa.\u00a0<\/p>\n The worsening situation in Manaus was not due only to one variant, he added, warning that authorities were expecting a rise in virus cases due to end-of-year parties.<\/p>\n ‘We need urgent support from the population to reduce the transmission and slow down the virus’s evolution,’ Naveca said.<\/p>\n Experts worry new mutations could eventually show resistance to the vaccines developed to combat the original strain.<\/p>\n However, ‘right now there’s no evidence that this line prejudices the vaccine’s response,’ Naveca said, and Brazil aims to start its vaccination campaign sometime this month.<\/p>\n There is concern, though, the new variant could already have spread throughout Brazil, and it has been detected as far afield as Japan.\u00a0<\/p>\n Brazil has had 8.3million confirmed infections and 207,000 deaths in total. The number of fatalities is second only to the United States.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Britain could face even more super-infectious coronavirus variants because surging infections across the globe fuel the chances of the pathogen mutating to beat the immune system and vaccines, scientists say. More than 90million Covid-19 cases have been recorded worldwide since the pandemic began, with numbers surging 33.8 per cent in the last two months alone. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Heartbreaking:](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2021\/01\/15\/09\/38039788-9150581-image-a-51_1610702363333.jpg\")
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