• Crisis of the covid variant, Minister Shapps: "There is no risk of food shortages in Great Britain"

  • Viral English variant, justified alarm?

  • Coronavirus, escape from London before the lockdown.

    The mutated virus worries

  • Covid variant: Italy, Holland and Belgium suspend connections with Gb

  • WHO: 'close contact' with United Kingdom on virus mutation.

    Furious tabloids with Johnson

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21 December 2020The woman who tested positive for the British variant of Covid is fine and asymptomatic.

According to what is learned, the woman is not hospitalized but is in isolation with her partner in their home in the Rome area.

The latter, of British origins, is also positive and asymptomatic and had returned from the United Kingdom a few days ago but the variant has not yet been confirmed on him.

His partner, on the other hand, has a strong viral load.

Element, the latter, which would have helped to sequence the genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus with the variant found in recent weeks in Great Britain.



Ecdc: "The mutation has been around since November"

The English variant of the coronavirus has already been around for a month.

Three sequences of samples collected in Denmark and one in Australia, taken in November, were found to be linked to the English outbreak caused by this mutation.



This indicates that "its international diffusion has already taken place, even if its extent is unknown".

The European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) explains this in a report published on its website.



"Public health authorities and laboratories in all European countries must analyze isolated viruses in a timely manner to identify cases of the new variant. Those who have had contact with people positive for the new mutation or have traveled to the affected areas should be identified immediately, so to test them, isolate them and trace their contacts ", says the ECDC.



Vaccines also effective against the virus variant

"The variant of Sars-CoV2 that is currently circulating in London and south-east England, presents mutations on the surface protein of the virus, the so-called Spike. Although it is hypothesized that these mutations can increase the transmissibility of the virus, they do not seem to alter either the clinical aggressiveness or the response to vaccines ", said the Director of Prevention of the Ministry of Health, Gianni Rezza.



EU and UK, emergency meetings today

The German presidency of the European Union "invited the representatives of the member countries to an emergency meeting of the crisis response mechanism (IPCR) today at 11 to coordinate the response to the new variant of the coronavirus in the UK ".

The spokesman for the German presidency, Sebastian Fischer, announced on Twitter.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called for today a meeting of the Cobra Emergency Committee on the new variant of the coronavirus. 



European countries suspend flights with the UK

Virtually all of Europe, including Italy, has decided to suspend flights with Great Britain.

From Wednesday, Israel will ban foreign citizens from entering its territory.

And all Israelis returning from that date will have to quarantine. 



USA: there is still no cause for alarm, for now no to stop flights

At the moment "there is still no cause for alarm" for the variant of Covid which is circulating in London and in the south east of England.

This was stated by Brett Giroir, assistant to the American secretary of health, in an interview with ABC.

There is no immediate need to suspend flights from Britain to the United States: "I don't think it's necessary for now," Brett Giroir also said.