DURBAN, South Africa — Doctors and nurses at a South African hospital group noticed an odd spike in the number of Covid-19 patients in their wards in late October. The government had slackened its lockdown grip, and springtime had brought more parties. But the numbers were growing too quickly to easily explain, prompting a distressing question.
“Is this a different strain?” one hospital official asked in a group email in early November, raising the possibility that the virus had developed a dangerous mutation.
The coronavirus variant that was first spotted last month in the U.K. has now spread to dozens of countries, likely passed on by infected people who traveled around the world and unknowingly brought the microscopic invaders with them.
Israel has given vaccinations against coronavirus to more than one million people, the highest rate in the world, as global immunisation efforts step up.
Nearly a year into the coronavirus pandemic, the perplexing problems of Covid-19 long-haulers seem no nearer resolution — or even explanation — than when they first puzzled doctors and patients in the spring.
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