I'm not a biologist either, but I've been told recently by someone who's likely to know what he's talking about (albeit also likely to be a bit "rah-rah Britain

I'm not a biologist either, but I've been told recently by someone who's likely to know what he's talking about (albeit also likely to be a bit "rah-rah Britain") that the UK is doing far more genetic sequencing of the virus than the rest of the world, which would explain why it gets noticed more in the UK.