British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday told reporters the U.K. was "looking carefully" at a circulating coronavirus variant first detected in India, as public health officials work to better characterize the strain. "At the moment we’re looking carefully at the way the Indian variant seems to function. 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). GET THE FOX NEWS APPThe agency noted variant cases of the Indian variant subtype, VOC-21APR-02, have increased from 202 to 520 in the last week, with nearly half of cases tied to travel.

Source: Fox News May 07, 2021 15:22 UTC