Icon: enlarge
Berlin virologist Christian Drosten
Photo: Reiner Zensen / imago images / Reiner Zensen
The virologist Christian Drosten assumes that the new variant of the coronavirus circulating in Great Britain has already reached Germany.
"I think that's already in Germany," said Drosten on Monday morning on Deutschlandfunk.
“This virus isn't all that new.
You really shouldn't let that disturb you in any way. "
Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed on Saturday that the recently discovered variant was up to 70 percent more contagious than the previously known form.
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock had said the new variant was "out of control".
Several states then stopped entry from Great Britain at the weekend.
The important British port of Dover on the English Channel and the Eurotunnel were closed at midnight.
For the time being, aircraft from the United Kingdom are no longer allowed to land in Germany until December 31 (read all the latest developments here).
Drosten expressed doubts about the scientific certainty of the value mentioned by Johnson: "This number was simply called that." Politicians would name such numbers, the media would take them up.
"Suddenly there is such a value in the room - 70 percent - and nobody even knows what it means."
Mutation at the receptor binding site
In order to know whether a virus can be transmitted better or faster, one has to see who infected whom and how long it took.
"With all the knowledge about this virus, one would be surprised if such a parameter were to change significantly," said Drosten.
The sequence of the virus shows that there is a mutation in the receptor binding site.
The binding to the receptor is stronger.
But that doesn't necessarily have to be better for the virus.
The new variant has been in England since the end of September and was not even in focus in October.
»We now know: it's already in Italy, in Holland, in Belgium, in Denmark - even in Australia.
Why shouldn't it be in Germany? "
The fact that viruses mutate is not necessarily worrying at first.
Sars-CoV-2 has also mutated several times.
In the summer, for example, a variant that was thought to have originated in Spain spread across Europe.
"We know that Sars-CoV-2 accumulates an average of two mutations per genome per month, which is not unusual for a coronavirus," epidemiologist Emma Hodcroft told SPIEGEL at the beginning of November.
It only becomes questionable when it comes to areas of the virus that are important for the immune response and vaccine development.
Documents sketchy
Regarding the new virus variant, Drosten said: “I'm not so worried about that at the moment.
However, I am - just like everyone else - in a somewhat unclear information situation. «The publicly known documents are still incomplete, and British scientists would see it that way.
"They also say they have to wait until this week at least until a few preliminary data analyzes have been completed to even say that the suspicions they are expressing are true."
With a view to the increased number of infections, the question is whether the new virus variant is to blame at all, "or is it simply that locally where this virus happened to be, the lockdown was not so strict, people did not know that a local epidemic is going on in them too, and that transmission mechanisms have simply come into play that would have washed up any other virus. "
In view of the increasing isolation of his country, Prime Minister Johnson called a crisis meeting for his administration this Monday.
A "steady flow of freight" to and from Great Britain must be ensured.
The German EU Council Presidency has called an emergency meeting with representatives of other member states for Monday.
On the agenda is the coordination of the European Union with regard to the new virus variant.
Icon: The mirror
kry / dpa
