Although the variant is in the U.K it's not yet believed to have come from overseas travel. So maybe this is a variant that has a higher likelihood of mutation in a specific demographic (e.g. Indian).
Speculation at this point to be honest.
Speculation at this point to be honest.
Is this a thing that's known to have occurred in other viruses? It seems rather unlikely compared to the chance that it came from someone asymptomatic or someone who skipped over the border controls via boat or something like that.
I'd be careful speculating over demographics. There's been a wave of violence against Asian (largely Chinese, Japanese and Korean) people in the US, believed to be caused at least in part by our former president accusing China of accidentally releasing the virus. I wouldn't want some populist to latch on to this theory and start blaming Indian people for variants.
Multiple trails of evidence pointing to it's emergence in India, and right now the UK is not restricting travel from India so the most likely scenario is that it arrived in the UK from someone who traveled to India or another country where that strain is spreading.