On Monday, a leading German virologist downplayed fears of a new coronavirus mutation spreading in Britain – and called into question Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s claim that the strain is 70% more infectious, according to reports.
“I wonder if a scientist gave an estimate, maybe he asked what he would say if he had to give a figure and then he would take a life of his own,” Christian Drosten told the Daily Mail.
“Then he enters politics, and politicians use this figure, and the media takes it. Suddenly, there is a figure – 70% – and nobody even knows what it means, “he told Deutschlandfunk radio, the British press reported.
“The fact that top politicians recite scientific content to the media, saying that there has been a mutation and that cases are growing more and more here and there – is unusual,” added the director of virology at the Charity Hospital in Berlin. .
Drosten also said it was unclear whether the increase in the Kent and Southeast cases was actually caused by the new strain, N501Y.
He said the new option could simply “come to the surface” during an increase in cases that could have happened for other reasons.
“The question is, was it the fault of the virus or was it simply that in the area where this virus happened to be … did transmission methods come into play that would have brought any other virus to the surface?” he said, the Daily Mail reported.
The virology expert mentioned that British scientists had not mentioned with any certainty that the new strain was more infectious.
“If you want to know if a virus is more transmissible, you should look at pairs of people who have been infected. You should see who infected whom and how long, ”Drosten said.
Germany is one of more than a dozen European countries that have closed their borders for flights to the UK because of the mutant strain – but Drosten said the new variant is probably already in his country.
“We know it’s already in Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, even Australia,” he said, adding that “he’s not so worried” about the moved bug and noting that none of these countries have reported an increase in related cases.
“I am open to new scientific knowledge and in science there are always surprises, but I am all worried about it,” Drosten told the German press, according to The Guardian in the UK.
On Sunday, the Dutch government confirmed that a case of a new mutation had been diagnosed in the country in early December, suggesting that it may have been present for some time, media reported.
So far, it does not appear to be spreading as fast in the Netherlands as in the UK, Ab Osterhaus, professor emeritus of virology at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, told OGGEM Dagblad.
In areas where the number of infections grows particularly fast, it tends to be mutated, Ostarhaus said. “But I still don’t know if this is justified.”
Experts point out that there is no evidence that vaccines – including the Pfizer-BioNTech shot in the UK – would not protect against the new variant, Reuters reported.
The discovery of the new strain came just months before vaccines became widely available, as the pandemic killed about 1.7 million people worldwide and more than 67,000 in the UK.
Countries that have suspended travel from the United Kingdom include Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain and Switzerland.