MOSCOW, August 11. /TASS/. The iota strain of the novel coronavirus, for the first time exposed in New York last year, remains no more contagious than the delta version, which is most widely spread in Russia, the United States and other countries, the director of the Research Clinical Center of Precision and Regenerative Medicine at the Kazan Federal University, Albert Rizvanov, told TASS on Wednesday.

At the beginning of August US researchers uploaded to the portal of preprints medRxiv a report on the iota strain’s properties. Their report has not been scrutinized by the scientific community yet. The authors argue that data analysis and modelling prompted the conclusion that iota spreads 15%-25% faster than the previous variants.

"The researchers say that the iota strain is more contagious, but this is true only in relation to the original strains. New coronavirus strains can be recognized as more contagious only on the basis of the speed of phasing out the previous ones. Whereas the delta strain phased out the alpha strain virtually in 3-4 months, the iota variant has not demonstrated such an ability yet. Consequently, the iota strain’s speed is no higher than that of the delta strain for the time being," Rizvanov explained.

The virologist noted the importance of exposing and monitoring new strains, because their parameters can change the development of the disease and the speed at which the virus is spreading, which must be born in mind for the proper treatment and prevention of the coronavirus infection.