Rise of Variants in Europe Shows How Dangerous the Virus Can Be

Europe, the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic last spring, has once again swelled with new cases, which are inundating some local hospitals and driving a worrisome global surge of Covid-19.

But this time, the threat is different: The rise in new cases is being propelled by  a coronavirus variant  first seen in Britain and known as B.1.1.7. The variant is not only more contagious than last year&rsquo s virus, but also  deadlier.

The variant is now spreading in at least 114 countries. Nowhere, though, are its devastating effects as visible as in Europe, where thousands are dying each day and countries&rsquo already-battered economies are once again being hit by  new restrictions on daily life.

Even as the variant surged in Britain starting in December, it was also seeding outbreaks across the continent, many of them unnoticed behind an overall drop in cases. Those variant-heavy outbreaks have since ballooned, and the variant has now crowded out other versions of the virus, becoming dominant in more than a dozen European countries.

Other variants of concern besides B.1.1.7 are also present in Europe. B.1.351, the variant first detected in South Africa,  has been found to  reduce the effectiveness of some vaccines, including AstraZeneca&rsquo s, which is being widely used across the continent.

And P.1, the variant that has driven hospitals in Brazil to the breaking point,  appears to be more contagious  than the original form of the virus and also contains a mutation that diminishes the vaccines' effectiveness.....

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https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/09/world/europe/europe-coronavirus-variants.html