Because the news that it was discovered recently was fake or misunderstood. Scientist knew of this variant for decades, but the news recently was that there had been some scientific paper on identifying and isolating this new strain. The patients in the paper that made all the headlines were infected with this variant in the early 2010's. These patients and the scientific team were based in the Netherlands. It was bad science reporting and click bait news stories that made everyone who didn't read the details think it's some new variant that came out of nowhere.
Because the news that it was discovered recently was fake or misunderstood. Scientist knew of this variant for decades, but the news recently was that there had been some scientific paper on identifying and isolating this new strain. The patients in the paper that made all the headlines were infected with this variant in the early 2010's. These patients and the scientific team were based in the Netherlands. It was bad science reporting and click bait news stories that made everyone who didn't read the details think it's some new variant that came out of nowhere.