The coronavirus can hardly be stopped despite lockdown.
Virologist Martin Stürmer explains what role the corona mutations play in this.
Munich experts feared it.
The virus mutation B.1.1.7, which was initially discovered in Great Britain, continues to gain acceptance in Germany.
Unstoppable despite lockdown.
The corona case numbers confirm the concern.
The corona mutation B.1.1.7 * is considered more infectious than the original Sars-CoV-2 virus.
That is probably not the whole story: Researchers from Harvard and other US universities have now observed another factor behind the rapid spread of the “British variant”.
Infected carry the mutation B.1.1.7.
longer in itself than the original coronavirus.
This corona mutation thus has the potential to infect other people over a longer period of time, according to the researchers.
Corona mutation: US study on B.1.1.7 variant
As part of their study, the team around scientist Stephan Kissler had 65 players from the American basketball league NBA, as reported by the US magazine
Forbes
.
All had tested positive for Corona, seven basketball players with the Corona mutation B.1.1.7.
The basketball players were tested for Covid-19 every day.
Harvard University researchers then examined the PCR samples.
An infection with the corona mutation B.1.1.7.
took an average of 13 days.
So five days longer than in the comparison groups with a Sars CoV-2 infection *, which were contagious on average for eight days.
A higher virus concentration could not be measured in the British mutation.
The maximum values were the same for both virus types.
According to the researchers, the increased duration is a crucial indicator of the increase in infections.
The mutation is therefore not more contagious because infected people have a higher viral load, but because they carry a higher viral load for longer.
Longer infection times mean the virus can spread to more people, the scientists conclude.
Further investigations will have to show whether this prolonged infection time is actually the reason for the higher infection rate.
The study is relatively small and the results were published in a so-called preprint and have yet to be replicated.
In science, replication is the repeated implementation of a study with a similar methodology, but by - as a rule - other scientists.
+
The corona mutation B.1.1.7 is probably more contagious than the old variant.
© Christian Ohde / imago
Corona in Germany: Virologist explains, this is how the 3rd wave starts
But why is Germany heading for a third corona wave despite lockdown?
Virologist Martin Stürmer explains this in the
focus.de
conversation: The proportion of original Sars-CoV-2 infections is gradually falling.
Corona measures such as lockdown would take effect here.
However, the proportion of infections caused by the mutations would increase.
Since the corona mutations are more contagious, there would likely be more outbreaks.
The measures seem to be inadequate.
Both corona curves would gradually cancel each other out and steer onto a "plateau".
According to the striker, there is a "zero sum".
Then the situation could change.
The proportion of mutations continues to rise so strongly and catch up with the number of declining original infections.
If the number of cases then increases again overall, that is the corona turning point.
A third wave begins.
+
Martin Stürmer is a virologist and lecturer at the University of Frankfurt.
© Striker / dpa
This thesis is also represented by the SPD health politician Karl Lauterbach.
Previously declining corona case numbers and then stagnating infection numbers are a sign of the trend reversal for Lauterbach.
"At this point in time, the third wave is building up and we are vaccinating too slowly: we shouldn't have any hopes for the next few weeks," Lauterbach said in the
Merkur.de
interview *.
"Otherwise, the mutations build up systematically and relentlessly into a third wave," warned the SPD politician.
The situation is explosive, as the data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) already show.
In a short time, the share of the British corona mutation rose from six to 22 percent * in the past week alone.
The proportion is now even 30 percent, as data from the Accredited Laboratories in Medicine (ALM eV) show.
And that despite the fact that the positive rate for the corona tests fell in calendar week 7 (February 13 to February 19, 2021).
Here you can find our news ticker on Corona in Germany.
(ml) * Merkur.de is part of the Ippen-Digital network
