UK prime minister expected to announce new anti-virus rules

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson held emergency talks with his Cabinet on Saturday to discuss strategies to curb the spread of COVID-19 as the government’s scientific advisors said a new variant of the coronavirus was accelerating the spread of infections.

England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, said that based on preliminary modeling data and rapidly rising incidence rates in southern England, a government virus advisory group thinks the new strain can spread more quickly.

There is no current evidence to suggest the new strain, which England's public health agency identified through genomic surveillance., is more deadly or that it affects vaccines and treatments, he added.

“We have alerted the World Health Organization and are continuing to analyze the available data to improve our understanding,” Whitty said in a statement.

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, told reporters this week that the U.N. health agency had “no evidence this variant behaves differently” and that it was similar to a variant initially reported among mink in Europe. She said scientists would study the virus strain to see if there might be any difference in how it prompts an immune response in people.

Johnson is expected to announce to announce changes to current infection-prevention restrictions when he holds a news conference later Saturday.

London now has the highest case rates in England, and this week moved under the highest level of coronavirus restrictions in the country’s three-tier alert system. Most of southern England joined the capital in an expansion of Tier 3 rules Saturday, meaning a total of 38 million people — or 68% of England’s population — are living under the toughest rules.

Under the restrictions, people...