Snow lies in front of the entrance of the Garmisch-Partenkirchen hospital. A perhaps new variant of the coronavirus was discovered in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen hospital. Samples are currently being examined at Charité Hospital in Berlin, the hospital announced on Monday.
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Germany is the latest country to discover a new coronavirus mutation, with a new variant being identified among a group of hospital patients in Bavaria.
Local newspapers reported for the first time on Monday that an unknown variant of the coronavirus had been discovered among 35 patients in a hospital in the Bavarian ski town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, southern Germany.
The altered virus was found in 35 of 73 newly infected people in hospital, Bavarian newspaper BR24 reported on Monday. Samples are allegedly being investigated at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin. CNBC contacted Germany’s Ministry of Health for confirmation of the reports.
Officials said the variant was different from what had recently been discovered in the United Kingdom and South Africa.
The hospital’s deputy medical director, Clemens Stockklausner, said in a press release on Monday that there was still no understanding whether the mutation made the virus transmissible (as with the variants discovered in Britain and South Africa). , or more deadly.
“At the moment we have discovered a small point mutation … and it is absolutely not clear whether it will be of clinical importance,” Stockklausner said. “We have to wait for the full order.”
The British or South African variants were not found to cause more deaths, although they did cause more infections, hospitalizations and unfortunately more deaths due to their ability to spread more easily. The UK and Ireland in particular have seen a rapid spread of the mutated virus, causing an increase in infections and some hospitals struggling with an influx of patients.
Information about the new variant found in Germany came to light on the same day that Jens Spahn, Minister of Health, said that the current coronavirus sequence in the country was not sufficient and that laboratories would be obliged (and compensated) to sequence coronavirus samples to monitor virus mutations.
A handful of other countries that have discovered coronavirus mutations, including the United Kingdom and South Africa, are known for their large-scale surveillance and genome sequencing of coronavirus samples.
Last week, dr. Janosch Dahmen, a doctor and a German Green Party MP, told CNBC that ‘we need a more precise crisis here in Germany to fight the pandemic, and I’m very worried that the numbers (of infections) will go much higher as we can see at the moment in Britain and Ireland. ‘
Infections continue
Germany’s 16 prime ministers will meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday to discuss whether to tighten or extend lock-in restrictions across the country. on 31 January.
Germany’s infection rate remains a major source of concern, with another 11,369 daily cases reported by the public health agency, the Robert Koch Institute, on Tuesday. This brings the total number of cases to just over 2 million. The death toll stands at 47,622.
Like other European countries, Germany was keen to avoid the spread of the more contagious strains of the virus found in Britain and South Africa.
Merkel reportedly told her Christian Democrat Union (CDU) party lawmakers last week that ‘if we do not succeed in stopping this British virus, we will have ten times as many cases by Easter … We needs another eight to ten weeks of difficult measures, “the German daily Picture report.
Spahn on Monday insisted that people should not call Britain’s coronavirus mutation detected ‘the English variant’.
“Just as we did not talk about the ‘Chinese virus’ last year, we should not talk about the ‘English variant’ now,” Spahn told Reuters.