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The virologist Christian Drosten assumes that the more contagious Corona variant, which was first discovered in Great Britain, has so far been less widespread in Germany.
He now sees a time window to nip the spread in this country in the bud, said the expert for coronaviruses from the Berlin Charité on Tuesday in the podcast "Coronavirus Update" at NDR-Info.
“We have to do something now if we want to influence the germination of the mutant in Germany.
You can't do that well later, then it's too late. ”In Great Britain, lockdown measures have already shown effects.
Based on the data now available, the virologist can assume that the variant is actually more contagious than previous forms.
“We have the results on the table.
We are dealing with a mutant that is spreading faster.
The quantitative extent, that really has to be discussed again. ”According to Drosten, the variant is a smaller percentage more contagious than initially assumed - at the beginning there was talk of 50 to 70 percent compared to previous forms.
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After a strong spread of certain Corona variants was recently observed abroad, there is now an increasing search for them in Germany.
Drosten assumes that cases have been introduced over the Christmas period.
According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), variant B.1.1.7 discovered in Great Britain has so far been detected in 20 cases in six federal states (as of January 17, 12 a.m.
Drosten said that data was still being collected and that more could be said about the situation in this country in the coming weeks.
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