They warn Britain’s new strain of coronavirus “is already in other countries”

The new strain of coronavirus which was discovered in the United Kingdom, more precisely in the south England, put the world on alert because it would be more contagious and now they are warning that this mutation “has already reached other countries“.

The British Minister for Transport, Grant shapps, was the one who ensured in dialogue with the channel Sky News that the new variant of COVID-19 has already crossed the borders of Great Britain: “The reality is that it may already be in other countries, we know it’s already in other countries“.

Germany This would be one of the countries where the new mutation of the virus has already arrived, according to the director of the Institute of Virology at the Charité clinic in Berlin, Christian Drosten, at the station Deutschlandfunk: “It can be assumed that the mutated pathogen has already reached Germany“.

same Australia He reported that detected two cases of the new strain of coronavirus circulating in England in quarantine facilities set up for travelers.

The Australian State Director of Health for New South Wales, Song of Kerry, said the cases were of travelers returning from the UK, reported CNN. Australia requires that all international arrivals, with few exceptions, go through a state-administered 14-day hotel quarantine.

Everything we know about the new strain of coronavirus in the UK

On December 19, the UK Advisory Group on New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats confirmed that the new variant of the coronavirus detected in the country spreads at a higher rate and that forces the population to be even more careful, the portal said Sputnik.

“The first analyzes suggest that this variant grows faster than the existing strains”, admitted the British Minister of Health, Matt hancock, in the Parliament of Westminster.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also claimed that the new strain is a “70% more transmissible“However, they clarified that there was still no evidence that it causes more severe symptoms or higher mortality.

“There is no current indication that the variant of the virus is more likely to cause serious illness or is more harmful or invulnerable to vaccines developed to date», Assured the British Minister of Health.

At the same time, the German virologist Christian Drosten pointed out that the data that the mutation is 70% more contagious is an estimate, since the the information currently available is very incomplete and scientifically unreliable.

They warn England’s new strain of covid is ‘out of control’

“British scientists have also made it clear that they need at least until the middle of the week to make precise statements,” the expert said. He also added that currently the question to be answered is whether the discovered variant is really more contagious.

In that sense, Drosten explained that it remains to be clarified whether the mutated virus sparked a new wave in the south-east of the UK, or whether it was due to the high infection rate in that region during the pandemic, partly because the people did not respect the restrictions enough.

He added that this hypothesis is supported by the fact that the mutation was discovered in UK in September and it was also detected in Australia, Netherlands, Denmark or BelgiumBut there, it did not cause an epidemic situation as serious as in the United Kingdom.

On December 14, the government of Boris Johnson has increased restrictions in various parts of South East England after detecting the new strain of SARS-CoV-2. Thousands of Britons rushed to leave the British capital to escape the new measures announced by the Prime Minister.

Previously, several countries, such as Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, France and Argentina, announced they were closing their borders to British travelers due to the spread of tension.

EuDr / ds