If each of them has a different variant of the virus, they probably got it from different sources. You can see a giant family tree of all the world’s coronavirus mutations here. About half of those are in the spike protein, which is worrying. Otherwise, we should continue our efforts—containing a highly transmissible coronavirus is exactly what we’ve been trying to do all along, isn’t it? Trevor Bedford, a scientist who studies virus mutation, noted on Twitter that the UK mutation “deserves close attention,” but that it was unlikely to interfere too much with a vaccine rollout.

Source: The Nation December 21, 2020 21:45 UTC