New variants will become a common place
This Brazilian alternative won't be the last boom we hear about.
Expect advertisements for new variants to become a popular place with sufficient time to allow mutations to emerge, spread and install in the population.
At present, there is no evidence that the virus has become more deadly.
But as long as it doesn't become less lethal, the more people who contract it still mean that, if left unchecked, more will likely get sick or die.
Alarmingly, the variants in Brazil and South Africa appear to contain changes that allow them to evade some of our normal immune response.
There is no evidence yet that it can avoid the vaccine - considering it may have been in circulation since July - but this is something that scientists around the world will be watching closely.
And while mutations are mainly captured in regions that do a lot of sequencing for the virus, it is almost certain that others are spreading invisibly around the world.
Brazil's UK alternative 'not the cause for concern'
A virologist says the Brazilian coronavirus variant detected in the UK is not the one causing the government's concern.
Professor Wendy Barclay, Chair of G2P-UK and Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Head of Influenza Virology at Imperial College London, explained the difference.
"There are two unique Brazilian variants, one of which was found once [in the UK] and no longer one," she says.
`` The worrisome new Brazilian alternative, captured in Japan-bound travelers, has not been detected in the UK.
The travel ban from South America to the United Kingdom aims to halt the import of the new variant, which is believed to be better at binding to human cells and thus more contagious.
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