The spread of the British variant of the virus may limit the wearing of respirators and responsibility, experts agree – ČT24 – Czech Television

According to the Minister of Health Jan Blatný (for YES), the anti-epidemic measures introduced in the Czech Republic have stopped working. Non-compliance is said to be the reason why the government is constantly prolonging restrictions. According to Smejkal, such behavior bears a partial share in the current situation. “The main reason is the presence of mutations, which we are only now able to detect to a greater extent,” commented Smejkal.

He also pointed out that the British variant has been in the Czech Republic for a long time. “It explains the slowdown in the response to those measures in recent weeks, it’s not a matter of the last few days,” he said.

According to Smejkal, the positive news is that, according to available information, the vaccine will help the British variant of the virus. “All the vaccines currently on the world market are dealing with this mutation,” he said.

Replace drapes with respirators

According to differing expert estimates, the British variant is spreading 40 to 70 percent faster than the previously prevalent form of coronavirus. Across the Czech Republic, healthcare professionals now admit about two hundred to three hundred new patients with covid-19 daily. However, according to statistics, their number could start to increase significantly, precisely because of the more contagious mutation of the virus.

“We can’t do much anymore, but we can still replace the veils with a respirator,” Smejkal said, adding that the respirators provide more protection. At the same time, he called on people to adhere to social distances even more strictly and to limit travel. He sees hope in the vaccine. “If we act responsibly, we will slow down the spread of this mutation,” Smejkal called.

Václav Hořejší, an immunologist and geneticist from the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, also agrees to exchange veils for respirators. According to him, a suitable investment would be for the government to provide them free of charge.

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More testing is needed, advises the immunologist

He also pointed out the need for testing and tracing. “To test, test, test and thus detect as many people as possible, quarantine them, ideally for ten days, if possible their close contacts, and thereby radically reduce the amount of virus in the population,” he appealed. At the same time, the immunologist Hořejší denied that the spread of the British variant would cause vaccination.

According to Hořejší, the British variant will prevail in the Czech Republic within a few weeks. Smejkal estimated this time to be a month to a month and a half. “The fact is that she eventually prevails, because if her only difference is that she is more contagious, it gives her a bigger advantage,” said Luděk Berec from the Center for Modeling Social and Biological Processes BISOP.

According to statistics from the World Health Organization last week, the so-called British mutation of coronavirus has managed to spread to seventy countries around the world since December. Apart from the island kingdom itself, it is most terrifying of continental Europe. In Portugal, they already account for 65 percent of new cases, in the Netherlands half, and Sweden, for example, expects the British mutation to prevail there in the middle of the month.

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