Transmission of new coronavirus strain 'likely to have tripled' even during lockdown
direct to your inboxThe new variant of coronavirus has a much quicker rate of transmission than the original strain, research has confirmed.Prof Axel Gandy, from the statistic section of Imperial College London, told Radio 4 the higher rate of infection means that transmission of the disease would have tripled even during England's November lockdown.Researchers at Imperial College London have now confirmed the new strain increases the R number - the number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to - by about 0.4 to 0.7.It comes after the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial confirmed the variant does spread quicker.Prof Gandy said: "The difference is quite extreme."Under the November lockdown