Alarm in Europe: new variants of the virus lead to an increase in cases

MILAN – The virus has spread to a kindergarten and elementary school adjacent to Bollate, a suburb of Milan 40,000 inhabitants, at a surprising speed. In just a few days, 45 boys and 14 workers tested positive.

Genetic analysis confirmed that it was the highly contagious variant first identified in England at the end of last year. The new strains have raised alarms in Europe, which introduced new restrictions after registering a million new cases last week, a 9% increase from the previous week and after a month and a half of consecutive decline in infections.

Bollate was the first town of Lombardy, a region that was at the center of the three waves of the pandemic in Italy, by isolating itself by the new mutations which are rebounding infections in Europe. Variants include two others first identified in South Africa and Brazil.

“This is the demonstration that the virus has some kind of intelligence, even though it is a single-celled organism. We can remove all the barriers in the world and imagine that they will work, but in the end it adapts and penetrates them, ”lamented the mayor of Bollate, Francesco Vassallo.

“The spread of variants is behind this increase, but it’s not just that,” said Dr Hans Kluge, World Health Organization (WHO) regional director for Europe, who also cited “the opening of society, when it is not done in a safe and controlled manner”.

The British variant is spreading significantly in the 27 European countries followed by the WHO, which has identified it as dominant in at least ten: Great Britain, Denmark, Italy, Ireland, Germany, France, Netherlands, Israel , Spain and Portugal.

This strain is up to 50% more transmissible than the virus that appeared last spring and again in the fall, and can bypass previously effective measures, warn WHO experts. “That’s why health systems are having problems now,” Kluge said. “It really is a turning point. We must remain strong and very attentive ”.

The situation is dramatic in the Czech Republic, which recorded a record of nearly 8,500 patients hospitalized for Covid-19 this week. Poland is opening field hospitals and imposing partial containment due to the increase in cases of the variant, which has risen from 10% of the total in February to 25% today.

Kluge noted that Britain’s experience is a source of optimism, saying that well-thought-out restrictions and vaccination have helped stem the variants both there and in Israel. But the vaccination campaign in the EU is much slower, mainly due to supply issues.

In Britain, the appearance of this variant sparked infections in December and led to quarantines across the country. Since then, cases have dropped from around 60,000 at the worst time of the outbreak in early January to around 7,000 per day.

However, a study has shown that the rate of decline is slowing and the government has said it will be cautious in its plans to ease restrictions. The process will begin Monday with the reopening of schools. Infections are prevalent among young people between 13 and 17 years old, so the authorities will follow them closely to see if the return to class encourages them.

If the British variant is dominant in France, where it has forced the city of Nice and the northern port of Dunkirk to be quarantined, the one detected in South Africa is the most predominant in Moselle., which borders Germany and Luxembourg, where it represents 55% of cases.

South African is also most common in a district of Austria that stretches from Italy to Germany. The Austrian authorities have announced that they will vaccinate most of the 84,000 people who live there to put an end to it. The country is also demanding that those traveling on the Brenner Highway, a major thoroughfare between north and south, test negative for the virus.

The South African variant, present in 26 European countries, is of particular concern because of doubts about the effectiveness of existing vaccines. The Brazilian, who appears to be able to re-infect people who have already beaten the virus, has been detected in 15 countries.

AP