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Faster-Spreading Covid Strain Affects Young the Most, Study Says

It’s possible the new variant appears to infect the young the most because the research was conducted at a time when there were lockdowns but schools remained opened.

It’s possible the new variant appears to infect the young the most because the research was conducted at a time when there were lockdowns but schools remained opened.

Photographer: OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images

The new coronavirus variant that emerged in the U.K. is more transmissible and appears to affect a higher proportion of people under 20, according to a report from Imperial College London and other science groups.

The mutation of concern has “a substantial transmission advantage” and is linked to “epidemic growth in nearly all areas,” the scientists wrote. It can raise the virus’s reproduction rate, which indicates how many people one patient infects, by as much as 0.7, the researchers found.