In the week before Christmas, the UK reported a new mutation circulating widely among the population. This variant would not cause a more serious clinical picture, but would be much more contagious. British virologists say the virus spreads up to 70 percent faster. It would explain why the British have not been able to tame the virus for several weeks, despite a tough lockdown.
Borders tight
Countries all over the world quickly closed their borders to the British, but the mutation quickly surfaced in the Netherlands.
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The hope that this variant could be crushed here is getting smaller. This week it was announced that at least 50 people in the Netherlands are already infected. 30 of them can be linked to an outbreak at a primary school in Bergschenhoek. For the other 20, the source is not always known, which feeds the fear that the mutation has already spread further.
‘Decline in hospital figures’
Prime Minister Rutte takes into account that the British variant and the Christmas days will ensure that the contamination figures are still high, despite the lockdown that has already lasted four weeks. “The hospital figures currently show what we had calculated four weeks ago. There seems to be a decline now. Exactly when we expected it. But we don’t see that with the infection figures. They are still high.”
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Dutch virologists are currently investigating what the British variant means for corona measures for children. Until now, children up to the age of 12 have been excluded from most measures because they appear to play a negligible role in the spread. Whether this will remain the case if the British mutation becomes dominant here is not yet known.
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