UK CLAIMS THERE’S NO FURTHER SPREAD OF BRAZIL COVID VARIANT

Britain's health secretary said there has not been "any further community spread" of the new highly contagious Brazilian coronavirus variant despite one person who has been diagnosed with the virus not being tracked down, Isobel Frodsham reported for Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).

In a press conference on Monday evening, Matt Hancock said the government had a "high degree of confidence" that in five of the six cases of the new variant in Britain confirmed on Sunday, the people self-isolated and followed government guidelines.

"There is no evidence the sixth case did not follow the rules ... also this sixth test was on the 12th or 13th of February, that was over two weeks ago and we have not seen any further knock-on transmissions in the data that we monitor very, very closely," he told journalists.

Public Health England (PHE) said late on Sunday up to six cases of the concerning variant first detected in the Brazilian city of Manaus had been identified in Britain, with three in England and three in Scotland.

Two of the English cases were located in the southwestern county of Gloucestershire but the third has not been tracked down due to paperwork not being filled in correctly, officials said on Monday. Britain’s vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi told British broadcaster BBC that authorities were working with the postal service to track down the person.

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