THE new strain of Covid is in every corner of the UK already, maps reveal, as fears of its ability to spread at a rapid rate.
Each nation has reported cases caused by the variant, which is 70 per cent more contagious than the “original” coronavirus type.
At least a third of cases in England have been blamed on the new strain – more than double the figure a month ago.
Wales is close behind, with 28 per cent of cases blamed on this strain which was only revealed to the public last week.
Some 14 per cent and 12 per cent have been attributed to the strain in Scotland and Northern Ireland, respectively.
Looking closer at England, more than 60 per cent of cases in London were caused by the new strain in the week to December 9, experts say.
The East of England comes in at a close second, with 59 per cent, followed by the South East with 43 per cent.
Swathes of these regions have been plunged into Tier 4 to try and stop people from taking the new strain into other parts of the UK.
But it may be too late, data shows, amid concern another national lockdown will be necessary.
The data comes from the Office for National Statistics Infection Survey, which has been tracking the outbreak using swabs from thousands of random households.
It gives a rough idea of the amount of people who have this new strain of the virus by looking at the sample who are involved with this study.
Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, referred to the figures at Saturday night’s Downing Street Briefing to show how cases caused by the strain have surged in the capital.
Scientists can test if people have this strain by looking at the mutations uniquely associated with the variant.
In the last week of September, 21 per cent of people in London tested positive for genes related to the new strain – ORF1ab and N genes.
It stayed relatively stable until November, when it rose to 35 per cent in a space of a month.
It has doubled since then, to 62 per cent, the figures show.
The same pattern was seen across England, suggesting the ease from the national lockdown gave the new strain the ability to spread more rampantly.
Cases attributed to this strain have been lowest in Yorkshire and the North West, which have shown drastic improvements in infection rates over the past couple of months.
But with at least one in six cases in the North linked to the strain, it suggests there is a risk of it becoming widespread if action is not taken.
Health chiefs have revealed the new strain has reached Wales and Scotland, but not in Northern Ireland.
However, the data suggests it has been present in those countries for months, but in smaller numbers at first.
At a peak in mid-October, 23 per cent of cases in Northern Ireland were positive for the mutation.
In the week to November 11, one in four people swabbed in Wales had this strain.
Wales health minister Vaughan Gething told BBC News on Sunday the new strain was “seeded” in the country.
Wales is reporting some of the highest infection rates in all of the UK, and is going into another full scale lockdown starting on Boxing Day.
Although in smaller numbers, the new strain has been detected everywhere.
For that reason, scientists are questioning why more of the UK is not under Tier 4.
After the Downing Street briefing on Saturday, Prof Jonathan Stoye, Retrovirus-Host Interactions Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, said: “I’m not certain that I understand the rationale of a partial imposition of Tier 4 rules.
“If enhanced restrictions are required to control the spread of the variant, why aren’t they being imposed across the whole country?”
He noted that regions with lower cases caused by this strain could soon see the situation spiral if they remain in a lower tier.
Yorkshire only has five per cent of infections linked with this strain by ONS.
But Prof Stoyle said: “How can we be confident that in the next few weeks the reported five per cent incidence in other parts of the country will not rise to 50 per cent?”
Speaking about the new strain of the virus, Professor Openshaw of Imperial College London, a member of Nervtag, told The Times: “It’s very unlikely anything less than really effective measures are going to control it.
“My concern is people are not going to comply. It’s really important people appreciate the danger.
“It does seem inevitable it will spread but it doesn’t mean it’s useless trying to prevent that from happening.”
He added that it may be “necessary to extend” the Tier 4 restrictions further into England as the virus spreads.
Sir Patrick told the public from a No10 briefing on Saturday that not only does the new strain appear to move fast, it has increased it’s ability to transmit and is “becoming the dominant variant”.
The Health Secretary said it would be “very difficult” to keep the deadly bug under control without the vaccine having been widely administered.
When pushed over whether Brits in Tier 4 areas would remain in lockdown into the new year – despite a review expected on December 30 – Mr Hancock said: “Given how much faster this new variant spreads, it’s going to be very difficult to keep it under control until we have the vaccine.”
It comes as a scientist has said the virus strain found in the UK is likely to become the dominant one globally, amid a scramble to shut borders to Britons.
Calum Semple, professor of outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said the new strain is infecting many more people in the same amount of time that the previous variant did.
When asked on Sky News whether the mutant coronavirus will become the dominant strain around the world, he said: “I suspect it will, or strains like it will.
“Because the virus has the evolutionary advantage in transmitting more quickly, it will out-compete all the other strains, and so it will naturally do that.
“As immunity comes into the community more widely, then you’ll start to see more pressure on the virus and you’re more likely to see other escapes of other variations.”
But Prof Semple reassured the virus mutating was normal, and what happens with flu every year.
He said: “We shouldn’t beat ourselves up about this evolving here.
“The fact is we’ve identified it, we’ve brought it to national attention, we’ve got the attention of the politicians and the World Health Organisation in very quick time.”
