The new coronavirus variant that emerged in the U.K. is more transmissible and appears to affect a higher proportion of people under 20, according to a report from Imperial College London and other science groups. The mutation of concern has “a substantial transmission advantage” and is linked to “epidemic growth in nearly all areas,” the scientists wrote. It can raise the virus’s reproduction rate, which indicates how many people one patient infects, by as much as 0.7, the researchers found. “This will make control more difficult and further accentuates the urgency of rolling out vaccination as quickly as possible,” said Neil Ferguson, a professor at Imperial who has worked on modeling the outbreak. Social distancing measures that worked against earlier strains of the virus were insufficient to control the spread of the new variant, the study found. The government had previously said the new strain was as much as 70% more transmissible than other versions, without providing documentation. The researchers used statistical tools to evaluate the link between transmission and frequency of the new variant across the U.K. The data have informed the government’s pandemic planning in recent weeks, Ferguson said. It’s possible the new variant appears to infect the young the most because the research was conducted at a time when there were lockdowns but schools remained opened, the scientists said. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2TwO8Gm Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world. To watch complete coverage on Bloomberg Quicktake 24/7, visit http://www.bloomberg.com/qt/live, or watch on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV and Android TV on the Bloomberg app. Have a story to tell? Fill out this survey for a chance to have it featured on Bloomberg Quicktake: https://cor.us/surveys/27AF30 Connect with us on… YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Bloomberg Breaking News on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BloombergQu... Twitter: https://twitter.com/quicktake Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quicktake Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quicktake