There is some evidence the new variant of the coronavirus first identified in the UK may be up to 30% more deadly than previous variants, the UK government has said, Business Insider reported.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a Downing Street press conference on Friday that it "now appears there is some evidence the new variant may be associated with a higher degree of mortality."

The UK government's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance stressed that while he was "confident" that the new variant was more transmissible, the evidence remained "not yet strong" and "uncertain" that it was more deadly.

However, he said the early signs that the new variant could be up to 30% more deadly.

Vallance said that whereas an average of 10 out of a 1,000 older people died of the old variant in the UK, this appears to have increased to 13 out of 1,000 people with the new variant.

Vallance told the press conference there was no evidence that the UK variant was any more resistant to existing vaccines. However, he said he was more worried about the susceptibility of the South African and Brazilian variants to the vaccines.