Please remain calm

The world seems to be freaking out over the report of a new Covid-19 variant from South Africa. European countries are banning travel from southern Africa, financial markets are cratering, and of course it's all Joe Biden's fault.

 

 Here's a reasonably measured explanation from the AP. The facts are:

• We don't actually know if this variant is any more transmissible than Delta, nor whether it is any less susceptible to immunity from vaccination or previous infection.
• There is no evidence that it causes more severe disease.
• The virus constantly mutates and new variants will continue to be found. If anything, this discovery is a testament to South Africa's excellent surveillance program -- this variant, and others, are probably already present in other places but just haven't been detected yet. 
• This is probably nothing, but if it does require modifying the vaccines, the good news is that it is easy to rejigger the mRNA vaccines to match new variants. 
• If the world freaks out and the markets tank every time a new variant is discovered, we'll be freaking out and tanking repeatedly forever. So don't do it.