传染性增强四成到七成！新冠病毒变异对疫苗有影响吗？
英国出现变异新冠病毒一事受到了全球的广泛关注，目前已有超40个国家和地区暂停了英国航班入境。
当地时间22日，世卫组织称该种变异病毒更易在人与人之间传播，据估计，该变异病毒的传染性升高了40%至70%。
英格兰公共卫生局顾问医师苏珊·霍普金斯表示，据测算，伦敦的新冠肺炎确诊患者中62%的人感染的是这种新毒株。但据观察，新毒株目前没有表现出毒性增强，感染住院率也没有大变化。
回溯性研究发现，9月20日该变异病毒首先出现在英格兰东南部的肯特郡，大部分感染该变异病毒的病例年龄在60岁以下。
COVID-19 has mutated again, creating a possibly more contagious version of the virus – but experts argue vaccines will still be effective despite this change.
This new variant is estimated to be between 40 and 70 percent more contagious than previous variations of the virus.
And more than 60 percent of infections in London were caused by the new one. However, it does not increase the severity of symptoms in those who become infected.
新冠病毒变异对疫苗有什么影响？
How will the new COVID-19 variant affect vaccines?
变异是病毒复制过程中发生的常见现象，新冠病毒作为RNA病毒，变异会更加频繁。
世界卫生组织专家21日指出，尽管新冠疫情暴发以来病毒已出现数次基因突变，但包括英国近期出现的变异新冠病毒在内，目前已知变异对新冠药物、疗法、检测手段及疫苗有效性都尚未构成重大影响。
眼下，让专家们更为担忧的是，变异新冠病毒的高传染性很可能将导致疫情的加速传播。
COVID-19 mutations are not new, or even unexpected. Viruses mutate regularly and coronavirus is no different. And this new variant is not expected to affect vaccine roll-outs.
Updates to existing COVID-19 vaccines were also expected, according to Jackie Cassell, a professor at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. "It's worth emphasizing that coronavirus vaccine, like the flu vaccine, is a vaccine that we've always known that we'd always have to update as things moved on," she said.
Ugur Sahin, the CEO of BioNTech – which developed a COVID-19 vaccine with Pfizer – also told reporters that only 1 percent of the virus has mutated, making available vaccines still effective. He added that if it does mutate again, it'll take just six weeks to update the current inoculations.
“英国本该早点采取措施！”
"UK should have acted sooner"
近期，英国再一次深陷疫情危机。
进入12月以来，该国新增新冠肺炎确诊病例再次激增，累计确诊病例超过207万例，最近一周的平均单日新增病例接近3万例。
英国政府前首席科学顾问大卫·金教授向CGTN表示，英国的疫情之所以会发展到这一步，是因为政府在前期没能采取必要的措施。
他指出，早在今年的1月23日，中国就在《柳叶刀》杂志上发表了新冠病毒的相关文章，这对英国来说是极好的消息，因为该文章包含了英国采取紧急抗疫举措所需的全部信息。然而，英国政府却并没有采取必要行动。
金教授还提到，他建立的独立顾问小组（Independent SAGE）曾在12月初就对英国政府发出了新冠病例将剧增的警告，并建议月初就采取“封城”等措施进行应对。
“我们三周前就该有所行动了，而不是在圣诞节前夕采取措施，此时人们早已制定好节日计划了”，他说道。
With deaths edging closer to 70,000 and cases already past 2 million, the effects of the coronavirus have been disastrous on the UK, but former chief scientific adviser to the government, David King, told CGTN Europe that failure to take the necessary actions have led to this point.
"Once again, we're heading towards a complete UK lockdown. And so it's a disaster for our economy as well … [and] the hospitals are becoming overloaded," King said.
"This was all allowed to happen in the first months of this year, when we had really wonderful news from China – the publication in the British journal The Lancet on January 23 contained all the information we needed for urgent action and I'm afraid the government didn't take the action necessary," he added.
“2012年，英国政府开始削减医疗体系的资金。于是，我们的医疗体系以一种资金不足的状态进入了这场疫情。”金教授说道。
他还补充说，政府本该资助NHS顺利完成病毒检测、病例追踪和病例隔离等有效抗疫举措。然而，政府却成立了多家私营企业来帮助完成这一系列重要举措，但这些企业并没有医疗领域的经验。
“有人大张旗鼓地宣传说这是全世界（应对疫情）最好的系统。但这其实是全世界最糟糕的系统。” 金教授说道。
The UK is once again battling a surge in COVID-19 cases after a new, more contagious variant of the virus was discovered in the country.
One of the UK government's failings in dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak, according to King, stems from the historic underfunding of the country's National Health Service (NHS).
"Let me just take you back to 2012, when the British government began cutting back on the funding of our health care services. So we entered this disease with our health care services badly cut back," King explained.
"And instead of funding them so that the test, trace, isolate and support system could be put in place effectively … the government only in May set up a couple of private companies, it's now 12 companies, with no health care experience to attempt to run the test, trace and isolate system, with great fanfare saying it would be the best in the world. It's not. It's the worst in the world," he added.