It took another mutant to cancel Christmas – VG

Many British Christmas travelers are disappointed. On Saturday, the UK was told to unpack and stay home.

They are fighting a mutated coronavirus.

Also travelers returning home for Christmas in Norway had to turn around at the airport on Monday. The first thing Health Minister Bent Høie did this morning was prevent UK planes from landing in Norway.

Sweden decided the same in the afternoon. But they are not content with that. They get to close the border with Denmark.

The mutation was discovered by British researchers as early as September. It is now dominant in London. The theory is that it developed in a long-term diseased covid patient with a weakened immune system.

However, the National Institute of Public Health did not recommend shutting down British planes, because we already have among the strictest entry and quarantine rules in Europe that prevent transmission.

The mutation has also been found in Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark. Just because the British are the best in the world at detecting mutations does not mean that other countries do not have them.

If it has been around all fall and is as contagious as claimed, the mutation has most likely spread to several places.

Politically, it was probably still easier to overtake FHI by Høie. The fear spreads. The opposition is trying to get some much-needed points.

The ever-infected Raymond Johansen (Labor Party) in Oslo demanded a flight stop all Sunday. Storting politicians have also been looking for Høie since Aftenposten revealed that he opened up to foreign workers after a lobbying campaign.

But the flight stop does not seem to be lasting. Two days is what has been said. If the mutation can be stopped, then it will probably be with testing and surveillance that people actually follow the quarantine rules.

In Britain, the mutation has prompted Prime Minister Boris Johnson to introduce measures that just a few days ago he called inhumane.

It was only when someone mentioned the mutation that things took off. In Denmark, the same thing happened this fall, when professionals warned against mink infection for weeks. They weren’t heard until they said the word mutation.

This does not mean that it is simply a matter of rejecting the new British mutation.

But it sped things up to the highest degree. And that’s good, because there are now stricter measures in England.

And the Swedish government is also using the mutation to evoke a more serious state of mind, it is necessary to reduce the infection by the clouds.

There are two things in particular of concern about mutation.

First, it is estimated to be much more contagious than the Chinese original. And second, the fear is that vaccines no longer work so well.

If we think that the virus has keys for our body, it is possible that the old brass key has been replaced by a fast access card.

At the same time, it may have received a new layer, so that our body no longer recognizes the virus and can stop it.

Some of the 17 changes in the virus may indicate this, while second pointing in the opposite direction.

FHI and Bent Høie repeat the claim that this variant can increase the number of infections by 0.4 and that it is 70% more contagious. And it comes from the British government and its experts.

But they haven’t said what they base the number on. According to the BBC, they have it from a researcher who on Friday gave vague estimates that this is spreading faster, but who also said it is too early to tell.

Because there may also be other explanations besides the mutation that this virus has become dominant. Like super-spread incidents and that the virus was in the right place at the right time.

An experience from Norway is that there are rapid reports of infectious mutations after outbreaks. Afterwards, it often turns out that it doesn’t make sense.

German virologist Christian Drosten tells Science that there is no basis for claiming that it is 70 percent more contagious. He estimates that the mutation has reached Germany and points to another mutation that professionals thought was more contagious. It turned out not to vote. The virologists on the Twiv podcast also don’t think the mutation can be said to be that contagious.

The virus will now undergo laboratory testing to find out more. And if it turns out to be highly contagious, stricter measures are needed to control it.

What many experts seem to think is that the mutation will not create problems for vaccination now, but that it may present problems in the long term.

We may need to update vaccines, which is fortunately much easier with the new vaccine technology we have now.

Immunologist Anne Spurkland is also on this track.

– It takes a long time before the virus manages to mutate away from an immune reaction, whether it comes from a vaccine or an infection, he tells me.

Because it is not just an antibody. We have a lot. And it’s not just the virus that can mutate and spread the fastest. Antibodies do the same.

There is an arms race in our bodies in which both antibodies and viruses are put together with the help of natural selection.

Right now, the coronavirus has the upper hand. But humanity has made an oversoul against the crown. Soon it will come like a shoulder shot near you. And it will work.