Initial research by Public Health England (PHE) suggested the B117 mutant caused “no significant difference in the risk of hospitalisation or death” in people infected with it.
However, as time has pressed on, new analyses have found “consistent” evidence that the B117 mutant leads to “increased disease severity in people”.
This is based on different research studies conducted by Imperial College London, University of Exeter and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
All three institutions came to the same conclusion that the B117 strain demonstrated more disease severity in people infected by the virus.
However, there are “several limitations to these datasets including representativeness of death data, power, and potential biases”.
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