The snow is in front of the entrance to the Garmisch-Partenkirchen hospital. A possibly new variant of the coronavirus has been discovered at Garmisch-Partenkirchen Hospital. Samples are currently being examined at Charité Hospital in Berlin, the hospital announced Monday.
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Germany is the latest country to discover a new mutation in the coronavirus, with a new variant identified among a group of hospital patients in Bavaria.
Local media reported on Monday for the first time that an unknown variant of coronavirus had been discovered among 35 patients at a hospital in the Bavarian ski town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen in southeastern Germany.
The altered virus was found in 35 of 73 people recently infected in hospital, Bavarian news media BR24 reported on Monday. According to reports, samples are being shown at Charité University Hospital in Berlin. CNBC contacted the German Ministry of Health to confirm the reports.
Officials said the variant is different from the variants recently discovered in the UK and South Africa.
The hospital’s deputy medical director, Clemens Stockklausner, told a news conference on Monday that it was not yet clear whether the mutation made the virus more transmissible (as with variants discovered in Britain and South Africa). or more deadly.
“At the moment we have discovered a small point mutation … and it is not absolutely clear if it will have clinical relevance,” Stockklausner said. “We have to wait for full sequencing.”
British and South African variants have not been found to cause more fatalities, although as a result of their ability to spread more easily, they have caused more infections, hospitalizations and, unfortunately, more deaths. The UK and Ireland, in particular, have seen a rapid spread of the mutated virus, which has led to an increase in infections and left some hospitals with problems due to patient influx.
Information about the new variant found in Germany emerged the same day that the country’s Health Minister Jens Spahn said the current level of coronavirus sequencing in the country was insufficient and that laboratories would be required (and compensated) to sequence coronavirus samples to control virus mutations.
A handful of other countries that have discovered coronavirus mutations, including the UK and South Africa, are famous for their large-scale surveillance and genome sequencing of coronavirus samples.
Last week, Dr Janosch Dahmen, a German doctor and MP for the Green Party, told CNBC that “we need a more precise mode of crisis here in Germany to fight the pandemic and I am very worried the number (of infections) will go up a lot. above as we can see in Britain and Ireland at the moment “.
Infections persist
The 16 German prime ministers will meet on Tuesday with Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss whether to tighten or extend blockade restrictions across the country that will end in January. 31.
Germany’s infection rate remains a major concern, with 11,369 more daily cases reported by the public health agency, the Robert Koch Institute, on Tuesday. This brings the total number of cases to just over 2 million. The death toll is 47,622.
Like other European countries, Germany has been anxious to prevent the spread of the most infectious virus strains found in Britain and South Africa.
According to reports, Merkel told lawmakers from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party last week that “if we fail to stop this British virus, we will have ten times the number of cases per Easter … We I need eight to ten more weeks of tough action, “the German newspaper said image reported.
On Monday, Spahn insisted that people should not call the coronavirus mutation detected in Britain “the English variant”.
“Just like last year we didn’t talk about the‘ Chinese virus ’, now we shouldn’t talk about the‘ English variant, ’Spahn said, Reuters reported.