WHO warns COVID-19 variants impact on health systems - China.org.cn

An increase in reports of variants of the coronavirus in 2021 will have the potential to have a devastating impact on health facilities under stress, warns World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe in a press release on Friday.

"Variants are a common phenomenon and are not in themselves dangerous, but they can be if they change the behavior of the virus; therefore, we need to monitor these developments closely," said Richard Pebody, who leads the epidemiology and surveillance response on COVID-19 in WHO/Europe, in the press release

The warning came as the highly transmissible variant SARS-CoV-2 VOC 202012/01 originally found in the United Kingdom, gathers pace and spreads to 30 countries in the European Region, with 22,503 cases reported as of Jan. 22.

According to the press release, many of the 30 countries project that the VOC 202012/01 might become dominant in the coming weeks, outnumbering non-variant cases of the coronavirus.

"Higher transmissibility does not mean a variant transmits in a different way, rather the variant just spreads better... If this causes our health-care systems to become overwhelmed and less able to cope, more people could be at risk of dying from the virus," said Catherine Smallwood, who leads the COVID-19 response team at WHO Europe Office, in the press release.

WHO has called upon countries in the region to redouble their efforts and increase research in national laboratories in response to the inherent dangers current and newly discovered variants will present in the future.