European experts have slammed a warning about the new slick of Covid-19 found in the UK, saying many remain unclear about the new N501Y launch and how soon it will roll out.
After 18 European countries suspended travel ties from Britain or imposed stricter quarantine requirements on Sunday night, scientists said more data were needed before firm conclusions could be drawn.
Christian Drosten, a leading German physiologist, said he thought the new pressure was already circulating in Germany, but said he was “everything but worried” about the current viral movement.
The scientific data around N501Y was not yet clear, Drosten told broadcaster Deutschlandfunk on Monday. Claims that the strain appeared to be 70% more potent than estimated for now, he said, seemed to have to be confirmed by British scientists over the course of this week.
Drosten said: “The question is: is this virus triggered by a new wave coming in the affected area? [south-east England], or is it this virus that is responsible for creating this wave in the first place? That is an important difference. ”
Drosten said the strain was found in other countries such as the Netherlands, where it did not appear to have multiplied in a much faster way. “I’m open to new scientific ideas, and in science there are always surprises, but I’m all but concerned about this,” he said.
In France, Vincent Enouf of the Institut Pasteur said that a link had not been established between the new mutation and the faster spread of the virus in Britain.
“We’re being told it’s spreading faster in parts of the UK,” Enouf told France 2 television. “But is that the result of a super-spreader spreading the virus, or the new imitation? All of this has yet to be proven. ”
The Dutch government confirmed on Sunday that an issue with the new strain had been detected in the country in early December, suggesting it may have been in the country for some time already.
But it does not yet appear to be spreading as fast in the Netherlands as in the UK, Ab Osterhaus, professor emeritus in virology at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, told the newspaper Algemeen Dagblad.
“In areas where the number of diseases is rising particularly fast, it tends to be linked to the trend,” Ostarhaus said. “But I still don’t know if that’s reasonable.”
Another infectious disease expert, Bart Haagmans from Erasmus Medical Center, said: “It is difficult to make a clear link between transplants and mutations. Is the rapid transmission due to mutation, or are other factors involved? ”
Marion Koopmans, head of the Erasmus geology department, said there were indications that the new variant could be more contagious but that more research was needed. Furthermore, she said, “Holland is already locking up. That would help prevent a rapid spread here. “
In Italy, which has also confirmed a recent N501Y mutation in a London-born woman with the highest coronavirus death rate in Europe, ministers and the media were less optimistic.
Health Minister Roberto Speranza said: “If the virus came unconsciously from Wuhan, how can we not be concerned about a new series that seems to be already in Rome, Venice and Turin?” Sole24Ore quoted his article as: “The opposite of English is frightening.”
Massimo Galli, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Milan, said it was possible “that we are facing a change that is not more dangerous, but may have a greater capacity to spread”. Further research was needed before such a claim could be confirmed, he said.