Mutated virus threatens Europe – Switzerland also stops flights to England – abroad

Frustration instead of celebration: As of Saturday, many Britons were still happy with the relief from the lockdown the government had promised them during the holiday season. But now Prime Minister Boris Johnson is massively tightening the Crown screws and has imposed a tough blockade on much of southern England (including London). Meetings with people from other households are, with very few exceptions, prohibited with immediate effect, restaurants and most shops are closed. More than 16 million people are directly affected by the measures.

The reason for this is a new mutation of the coronavirus that is spreading rapidly in the British Isles. The virus variant, which has already been detected in the Netherlands, Denmark, Australia and South Africa, is up to 70 percent more contagious, according to the British government and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, but according to the Current research is no more deadly than the original SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

Almost two-thirds of new infections in Britain are now due to the new variant of the virus.

Health Minister Matt Hancock highlighted this on the BBC.

The mutated virus is not just plunging the UK into pre-Christmas chaos. Switzerland and other European countries have reacted to the terrifying news and cut their travel connections to the British Isles. The Netherlands, Austria and Italy, among others, have canceled all flights to the island. Belgium closed the railway tunnel on the Eurostar connection. Scotland doubled the number of police on its border. And Germany is largely stopping flights from Britain. Landings from the country are prohibited after midnight.

Swiss experts warn against dangerous passivity

Switzerland waited first. “We are monitoring the situation,” said a spokeswoman for the Federal Office of Public Health in the early hours of the night. But for many observers that was not enough. Isabella Eckerle, professor at the Center for New Viral Diseases at the Geneva University Hospital, calls on Twitter: “We can only hope that Switzerland will follow suit and not become the distributor of the new variant throughout Europe. Europe must constantly pull in the same direction. ”

The epidemiologist Marcel Salathé is also attentive to the situation. On Twitter, he highlighted that the new mutation of the virus had not yet occurred in Switzerland.

Official Switzerland responded late on Sunday night and cut all flight connections between the UK and Britain as of midnight on Sunday, the Federal Office for Civil Aviation announced.

The good news is: so far, according to British epidemiologists, there is no evidence that the mutated virus is immune to the vaccines that are being administered to millions of people around the world these days.