South Africa's New Rapidly-Spreading COVID-19 Variant Makes Its Way to the UK .
It appears to be more transmissible and is independent from the new variant that recently emerged in the U.K. However, it does feature a mutation similar to the new coronavirus strain in the U.K. Both strains have a mutation in the spike glycoprotein, .
Which experts believe allows the virus to spread more easily.
Zweli Mkhize, South Africa's health minister, .
Said more young people appear to be getting severely ill from the new variant.
Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, Germany, and Switzerland have already stopped flights to and from South Africa.
On Dec.
23, Britain’s Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, announced that South Africa's new variant had made its way to the U.K. via two people who had recently traveled to the country.
Hancock said South Africa's variant "appears to have mutated further than the new variant that was discovered in the U.K."
