In recent weeks two variants of the coronavirus have spread with ferocious speed in Britain and South Africa. They have mutations that make them a lot more contagious.

For every ten people that older variants would infect in Britain the new one infects 15.

Early data suggest that the South African variant burns just as fiercely.

The world is rightly focused on approving, making and administering vaccines. At the same time the new coronavirus variants will spread, creating logistical difficulties.

Evolutionary biologists state virus mutations behave like this as natural selection favours variants that are more transmissible.

A more transmissible Covid-19 virus variant is more dangerous meaning that hospitals will be overwhelmed as in England and South Africa.

Much of the rest of the world, including Europe and America, will soon follow. More than 50 countries rushed to ban travellers from Britain as soon as its scientists told the world about the new variant, in mid-December. Many have also banned arrivals from South Africa. But such measures are likely to buy only a little time.

In early November, before travel bans, the British variant already accounted for nearly 30% of cases in London, one of the world’s most connected cities. Given how early variants spread it is naive to believe that cases are not already seeded all over Europe and beyond. Once it arrives, the new British variant is likely to displace local strains within a few weeks.

So far, only sporadic cases of it have been found in 20 or so countries. But that is because, unlike Britain and South Africa, most do little genomic sequencing to look for mutations.

France has examined the virus fewer times in the entire pandemic than Wales does in a week. Most countries do not look at all. Other more contagious variants may thus be spreading undetected.

These mutations are unlikely to re-infect people who have had the disease or to evade today’s covid-19 vaccines. Natural selection will, eventually, begin to change that, as more and more people are inoculated.

However, vaccines can be tweaked to remain effective but, with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the process takes six weeks.

However, even in the mostly rich countries that have hoarded vaccine supplies there will not be enough to stop the virus from spreading, at least until summer in the northern hemisphere.

The emergency approval of the AstraZeneca-Oxford jab will help, but there will still be delays.

Poorer and middle-income countries will remain less well protected for a lot longer.

Countries in Europe and beyond will be forced to deal with this fast-changing reality by reassessing the trade-offs between the benefits from the harsh lockdowns needed to stop a more contagious virus and their long-term costs to schooling, health and livelihoods.

Darul Ihsan Media Desk