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The new variant of the coronavirus identified in Great Britain has already reached Italy: the first infected is an Italian woman who has returned from the United Kingdom in recent days. The patient, who is in solitary confinement with her partner who returned from the UK a few days ago, has a strong viral load. The woman, who according to some sources is in the Rome area, had a swab in recent days, probably on a car trip. Her partner is also positive, other family members and her close contacts are also isolated. The man was in London on business.
The new variant of the coronavirus and the first cases in Italy: what we know and what dangers there are
The first to raise the alarm was British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who had warned that the mutated variant of the coronavirus has a much higher transmissibility, 70% more. But the scariest was Health Minister Matt Hancock, who claimed that the new variant is “out of control.” Instead, the head of the British Health Authority Chris Witty had explained two very important things: the first is that the new variant is not proven to be more lethal and to date there is no element that suggests that it is more resistant to vaccines of which in Great Britain the administration begins these days. The World Health Organization said that the new Covid variant “could affect the effectiveness of some diagnostic methods.” That is, it could escape hyssop tests. It is not the first time that the virus has changed: “It has already happened -explains virologist Andrea Crisanti- with the Shanghai variant that has supplanted that of Whuan. Now the priority is to give adequate resources to the laboratories to carry out the sequencing”.
The variant found in recent weeks in Great Britain has also already been tracked in Holland, Denmark, Australia and perhaps South Africa. European governments have closed connections with Great Britain. The tightening, as is often the case in the EU, was not carried out in any particular order. The Netherlands began, suspending flights to London until January 1. Then it was the turn of Belgium (trains too) and Italy. The ordinance, announced by Chancellor Luigi Di Maio and signed by Health Minister Roberto Speranza, has already entered into force until January 6. And the last British flight from London landed in Fiumicino in the afternoon. A decision made after a “confrontation with scientists,” Speranza explained.
The stoppage of the flights was also decided by Germany, which, as sitting EU president, took steps to assess the situation with its partners. Convene a video conference attended by Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel (absent from Italy) in an attempt to find a common response to this new emergency. Meanwhile – pending the urgent summit called this morning by the European Council for EU coordination on the response to the new variant of Covid-19 – Italy (like Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria) has suspended flights with Great Britain until January 6. For passengers who landed yesterday, the obligation to have a mattress was reintroduced, which had been suspended following the Decree of the Prime Minister of December 3.
Self-certification and overnight stay: the lagoons for lunch, Christmas dinner and New Year’s Eve
M501Y: the new variant of Covid-19 arrived in Italy, tests with swabs and vaccines
Chancellor Luigi Di Maio declared yesterday that the new variant of Covid-19 “can increase the Rt transmissibility index by 0.5%”, but in a video message the Director of Prevention of the Ministry of Health, Gianni Rezza for his part explained that “The Sars-CoV2 variant that is currently circulating in London and south-east England, has mutations in the virus’s surface protein, 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 ”. Franco Locatelli, president of the Higher Health Council, shares the same opinion: “Even if there are mutations such as those reported first in GB and then in other areas, it is very unlikely that the effectiveness of the vaccine will be lost. Actually, the answer to get out of this situation is the vaccine both for its safety and for its effectiveness. ”
However, it should be remembered that since September a viral strain that also carries the 69/70 deletion (one of the mutations found widespread in the Danish mink, but already known for some time) has spread in Great Britain. For now, there is no evidence that the “transmissibility, infectivity, immunogenicity or dangerousness of the virus” changes, as the scientists explained. The Sars-Cov-2 mutation is M501Y, explains today to Daily occurrence Federico Giorgi, geneticist at the University of Bologna: the mutation is currently the fourth most widespread in the Spike protein. It was discovered in September by the British consortium Covid-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK), which has 140,000 sequences of the virus sampled by people with a positive swab: “It is found in the region of the Spike protein (the one the virus uses to enter in cells) that interacts with the Ace2 receptor in human cells. The spike is like a long key. The mutation is where it interacts with the lock, that is, the receptor. The mutation makes the key look much more like the lock. The virus thus becomes more efficient in attaching itself to cells. ”
But for the geneticist, vaccines will remain effective: “The peak protein is made up of 1,250 building blocks, the amino acids. And the M501Y mutation is just one building block. Generally, it is not enough to render it ineffective.” The swabs are another matter: “The molecular test is based on the recognition of the virus RNA. So a single mutation can change the test result. That is why it is necessary to continually update them based on the identified mutations.”
VUI202012 / 01: the new strain of SarsCoV-2
Corriere della Sera explains today with Massimo Galli, head of infectious diseases at the Sacco Hospital in Milan, and Carlo Federico Perno, director of the Microbiology Unit of the Bambino Gesù Hospital in Rome, that the new strain of SarsCoV-2, called “VUI202012 / 01 “(investigational variant)” was first identified in mid-September in London and Kent, a county southeast of the capital. In these areas, from being a minority, it became predominant in just over two months mutations, including the major one (N501Y) in the spike protein, that the virus uses to bind to human cells through the ACE2 receptor. ”
But the vaccine process continues as planned. “The virus mutates more when it replicates a lot. For this reason, the appearance of the English strain should lead to an acceleration of the vaccination campaigns, accompanied by research on the real production of antibodies – says Perno-. It is also possible to study the effectiveness of the vaccines on the variant. in the lab, but I think it is more helpful at this point to focus on immunization schedules as there is no evidence that the modified virus is less sensitive to the vaccine. Of course, if the vaccinated subjects were infected with the new Sars-CoV-2 strain, we would be facing bad news, but today there is no reason to believe that this will happen ”.
Repubblica, for its part, says that in England there is a hunt for patient zero and eyes are on Kent, as Tom Clarke, scientific director of the national ITV network, said, citing a study by experts from the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Edinburgh and Imperial College: The characteristic of this new Sars-CoV-2 strain is that it combines a large number of mutations already seen, but only separately, in other variants of the virus:
One possibility is that this new strain was developed in England in patients, or perhaps – says Clarke – “unfortunately only one of them”, with chronic and / or terminal diseases such as cancer and therefore unable to fight the virus. Which may have remained in their bodies for a long time, thus creating a “laboratory effect” to “thrive” and mutate.
Today Elmley Island has its three prisons, all with an explosive contagion rate, while the neighboring Swale district ten days ago had 624 cases per 100,000 inhabitants – the highest infection rate in England.
