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The new Corona variant has reached Italy.
The Ministry of Health of the southern European country announced that the mutation had been detected in a patient.
The patient and another person had returned from Great Britain in the past few days and landed in Rome by plane.
The patient is now in quarantine.
The federal government is concerned.
"It has not yet been proven in Germany, but of course we take the reports from Great Britain, from the United Kingdom, very seriously," said Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) on Sunday evening in the ARD "Report from Berlin".
"The significantly faster transferability, as it is assumed in this case, would of course change a lot and therefore it is important to prevent the entry to Germany, to continental Europe." It is important to verify the findings about the virus variant and at the same time to look ahead to act.
According to initial analyzes by British scientists, the new variant has an unusually large number of genetic changes, especially in the spike protein.
The virus needs this protein to enter cells.
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