Threatening virus variant found in Denmark – intensively tracked

The new variant of the virus will be a mutation of what is called “the British”, and which has almost completely taken over the spread of the infection in Sweden.

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It represents 80 to 90 percent of cases in most of the country. The British variant also appears to have meant that more young people need hospital care for the viral illness.

Infected in the country of origin

Now a mutation of the British variant of the virus has been found in two people in Denmark. None of them should have been abroad in the near future, but they must have been infected at home.

There is concern that COVID-19 vaccines will have a worse effect on people who have been infected with the new variant of the virus, called E484K.

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The variant of the virus should not be as sensitive to the antibodies that a person receives from having the disease or having been vaccinated against it.

The Statens Serum Institut, the Danish equivalent of the Swedish Public Health Agency, has noted that reduced sensitivity to antibodies does not necessarily mean that a vaccine will not work.

Intensive infection monitoring

The same variant of the virus has previously been found in the UK and the Netherlands, writes the Danish news agency Ritzau.

The fact that intensive infection monitoring must be used in the search for the source of infection means that it is not only those who have had close contact with those infected that are encouraged to isolate themselves.

Isolation is also prescribed in another step, for those people who in turn have had close contact with those who have had close contact with the infected.

Last week, the British variant of the coronavirus accounted for 92 percent of infections in Blekinge, 87 percent in Kalmar county, 88 in Kronoberg, 87 in Halland and 83 percent in Skåne.

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