England to reopen and monitor Indian coronavirus variant, minister says

England will push ahead with its plan to lift the COVID-19 restrictions gradually because even though it is worried about the emergence of a variant first detected in India it believes the vaccines are working, the vaccines minister said on Friday. Nadhim Zahawi said there were concerns about the presence of the Indian variant in some parts of England but that there was no evidence that the B.1.617.2 variant had a more severe impact on people or was able to escape the vaccines.

"The roadmap from Monday remains in place because the vaccines are delivering, vaccines are keeping people out of hospital and away from severe infection," Zahawi told Sky News.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)