The World Health Organization cautioned against major alarm over a new, highly infectious variant of the coronavirus that has emerged in Britain, saying this was a normal part of a pandemic's evolution.
WHO officials even put a positive light on the discovery of the new strains that prompted a slew of alarmed countries to impose travel restrictions on Britain and South Africa, saying new tools to track the virus were working.
"We have to find a balance. It's very important to have transparency, it's very important to tell the public the way it is, but it's also important to get across that this is a normal part of virus evolution," WHO emergencies chief Mike Ryan told an online briefing.