LONDON, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- Just a few days ago, Dr. Chandra Kanneganti received a call from public health saying that a group of patients who live at Goldenhill Nursing Home, next to his practice, had suffered a coronavirus outbreak.

Despite not being on call that day, Kanneganti, a general practitioner (GP) in Stoke-On-Trent in northern England and national chairman of the British International Doctors Association, answered the public health call to help with the outbreak and those who now had to isolate.

"We had to get them tested -- the whole group, and their families. Then we had to work out how we support them, because they can't come out -- so I had to look at how we could provide them groceries and other bits and pieces," he told Xinhua in a recent interview.

This is a typical "day off" for Kanneganti since the new coronavirus strain sparked a sudden rise in infections across Britain.

As England entered the a fresh lockdown in fighting the virus on Tuesday, a number of issues have disrupted Kanneganti and other frontline workers' day-to-day lives: from rising cases filling up their practices with patients, to logistical issues with the vaccine supply chains -- they have created serious headaches since the start of 2021.

"It's been extremely busy, and most of the GPs are full. And actually we had to find some extra sessions of GPs to cover the extra pressure we were in," Kanneganti said.

The main issue, he believes, is the new coronavirus variant first discovered in Britain which is believed to spread up to 70 percent faster than previous forms of the virus.

"We are seeing that this new variant is causing more spread than ever before, and we are having small outbreaks. Every day when I see my patients' blood results and the sample results, I am getting at least six to 10 of my patients getting positive for COVID. And this is quite a significant increase than what we had seen before," he said.

Kanneganti's practice is still offering remote consultations -- but all the telephone slots are being taken up and most of the other clinics and GPs in his area are completely full.

"Definitely there's a huge demand and a huge pressure on general practice," he said.

THE NEW STRAIN

In September, a new strain of coronavirus was detected by British scientists. In November around a quarter of confirmed cases in London were the new variant, which reached nearly two-thirds of cases in mid-December.

There is currently no hard evidence to suggest that the strain causes more severe symptoms, but scientists have agreed that the infectivity of the strain is far greater than the original -- although it is still in early days in terms of research.

"The severity of the new strain is not that much, but more people are infected than ever before. Before we had one person in the family get infected, the other members of the family would have actually got away without being infected, as long as they followed all the safety measures. But now we think that once one member gets infected, the whole family are getting infected," he said.

"So clearly, it's not as severe, it's more about it being more infectious. And so this is what we're seeing differently this time with this new variant. And because the numbers are more, we're seeing more admissions as well," Kanneganti said.

The change of the genomes in the new strain has also prompted many to question how effective the new vaccines will be in fighting the coronavirus.

Kanneganti said that he is confident the current vaccines will be able to still protect people against the new strain.

"We do know that the virus always tries to change because it wants to live, and it will change all the time. And we know that the flu vaccine, for example, every year is a different flu vaccine because of that. And we will have a COVID vaccine, there are slightly different changes every year. I trust and believe that the current vaccines will protect us against the variant as well," he said.

A POSITIVE NOTE

Despite severe disruption in the clinics and hospitals due to the new virus strain and challenges of the vaccine rollout, frontline workers are going out of their way to keep fighting the pandemic.

Kanneganti himself has set up a group of local volunteers to help people who are isolating with groceries, prescriptions and support.

In his opinion there is something to be positive about for Britain despite the dire current situation. British scientists are testing the genomic sequence of coronavirus whenever possible to keep an eye on future virus mutations.

"The UK is testing the genome of the virus whenever it's been tested and that's really good," he said.

Just like the flu, there was always a risk that the virus would change and continue to change.

"We are finding out solutions to make sure that the variant is found and taking steps to stop this variant virus spreading and also making sure the vaccine covers that as well," he said.

"I'm confident that yes, it may change, but we are also way ahead and having our own steps in place to fight these variants," he said.

The number of new daily confirmed cases of coronavirus in Britain topped 60,000 for the first time on Tuesday since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, official figures showed.

The total number of coronavirus cases in the country now stands at 2,774,479, while the total number of coronavirus-related deaths in Britain is 76,305, the data showed.

England on Tuesday entered the new national lockdown, the third of its kind since the pandemic began in Britain, as the country is struggling to curb rising coronavirus infections.

To bring life back to normal, countries such as Britain, China, Germany, Russia and the United States have been racing against time to develop coronavirus vaccines.