Health Ministry's urgent meeting today to discuss new COVID-19 strain in UK

New Delhi: After the emergence of a mutated variant of the Coronavirus in the UK, the Union Health Ministry has called an urgent meeting of its Joint Monitoring Group on Monday to discuss the situation.

"The Joint Monitoring Group (JMG) chaired by the Director General of Health Services (DGHS) will hold a meeting on Monday morning to discuss the issue of the mutated variant of the coronavirus reported from the UK. WHO's India representative Dr Roderico H Ofrin, who is also a member of the JMG, is likely to participate in the meeting," a source said.

A surge in the infection rate caused by a new variant of Coronavirus has led to millions entering a stringent new stay-at-home lockdown in the UK from Sunday, with non-essential shops and businesses now closed.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the new rules at a briefing from 10 Downing Street on Saturday evening, which means a planned five-day Christmas bubble of relaxed rules has been cancelled in favour of a new Tier 4 level to the current three-tier lockdown system to try and control the surge in infections being caused by the new mutation of the deadly virus.

"It seems that the spread is now being driven by the new variant of the virus, Johnson said.

Hours after Johnson imposed lockdown, Health Secretary Matt Hancock on Sunday admitted that the Coronavirus is out of control. "Unfortunately the new strain was out of control. We have got to get it under control," said Hancock.

We have alerted the World Health Organisation and are continuing to analyse the available data to improve our understanding, said Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer for England.

There is no current evidence to suggest the new strain causes a higher mortality rate or that it affects vaccines and treatments although urgent work is underway to confirm this, he said.

Under the new Tier 4, people would be banned from mixing with anyone outside of their household, including on Christmas Day, and for the other tiers, Christmas rules allowing up to three households will now be limited to Christmas Day of December 25 only, rather than five days. The changes will last for two weeks with the first review now due on December 30.

The new restrictions apply to all areas in the South East which were in tier three, covering Kent, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Surrey (excluding Waverley), Gosport, Havant, Portsmouth, Rother and Hastings.

It also applies in London and the East of England Bedford, Central Bedford, Milton Keynes, Luton, Peterborough, Hertfordshire and Essex. In Wales, the restrictions were brought forward pre-Christmas to also begin right away.

Non-essential shops, gyms, cinemas, hairdressers and bowling alleys will be forced to close for two weeks, while people will be restricted to meeting one other person from another household in an outdoor public space.

One by one, several European Union nations banned flights from the UK on Sunday and others were considering such action, all in hopes of blocking a new strain of coronavirus. Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Italy all announced restrictions on UK travel.

With agency Inputs