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Berlin (dpa) - The very contagious Corona variant B.1.1.7, first discovered in Great Britain, is spreading rapidly in Germany.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported on Wednesday evening with reference to tests carried out last week (March 22-28).
The spread of the variant is worrying because "according to previous knowledge, it is significantly more contagious and probably causes more severe disease courses than other variants."
A further increase in Covid cases in clinics can therefore be expected.
According to the RKI, all vaccines available in Germany protect very well against illness caused by B.1.1.7 and also against serious illnesses caused by two other variants.
In around 0.1 percent of the B.1.1.7 samples, however, the additional mutation E484K was detected, which weakens the effect of the antibodies in the immune system.
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According to the RKI, the two other virus variants currently hardly play a role in Germany: variant B.1.351, which is widespread in South Africa, was detected in 0.8 percent of the positive samples examined, while variant P.1, which is widely circulating in Brazil, was only detected in 1 percent.
Both variants can reduce the effectiveness of the immune system's antibodies somewhat.
Their share is so low because there is no population immunity in Germany, the Berlin virologist Christian Drosten recently explained in an NDR podcast.
“These variants only come up if we already have immunity in the population.
Otherwise they won't benefit from their mutations. "
According to Drosten's information, however, the vaccines protect against a severe course of Covid-19 in both cases.
The increase in new infections overall and the very contagious variant B 1.1.7.
According to the RKI, this will lead to a “significant increase” in the number of Covid 19 patients in clinics.
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On the other hand, the increasing number of reported new corona infections according to RKI findings has not been particularly attributable to the rapid tests.
"No bias in the number of PCR-positive test results due to an excessive or sharply increasing number of positive antigen tests can be detected".
Between March 8 and 14, when weekly free rapid tests were introduced in Germany, 4.4 percent of laboratory-confirmed PCR tests were preceded by a positive rapid test, according to the RKI.
This share climbed slightly to 5.5 percent (March 15-21) and most recently to 6.0 percent (March 22-28).
According to the RKI, the number of positive PCR tests with a preceding rapid test in calendar weeks 11 and 12 (March 15 to 28) was around 1,800 higher than in the previous week.
However, the number of positive tests increased by over 20,000 in each of the two weeks.
According to the RKI, there were 1.40 million PCR tests in the past week.
According to the RKI management report of the previous week, it was 1.35 million at the time.
The rate of positive tests rose in the weeks from 7.91 to 9.33 percent and thus much faster than the test numbers.
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Positive quick test results must be reported to the health department.
A PCR test should then be carried out.
However, the RKI restricts the fact that it cannot make any statements about the completeness of the reports.
Self-tests for at home are not notifiable.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210401-99-50101 / 2