Closing the borders did nothing.
While several countries had suspended air links with the United Kingdom, where a new form of Covid-19 has pushed millions of residents into new confinement, the British mutant has finally crossed the border.
In France, the Ministry of Health announced on Saturday December 26 the first detected case of a French national who arrived from London on December 19.
Asymptomatic, the man was isolated at his home in Tours, according to the Minister of Health Olivier Véran, who said that it was “
possible
” that the variant is already circulating in France.
Read also: Covid-19: should we be worried about the mutant circulating in the south-east of England?
In recent days, several other countries have detected the existence of the British mutant on their territory.
Spain also detected four cases on Saturday, all of passengers on flights from the UK.
Japan has also announced five cases in its territory, so four are asymptomatic.
Earlier in the week, Germany also detected a case at Frankfurt airport, as well as Lebanon in Beirut.
For their part, the Belgian authorities noted on Tuesday four cases of contamination with the new British variant in the country.
"
It's not much, but it is not impossible that there are more,
" Yves Van Laethem, interfederal spokesperson for the fight against the coronavirus in Belgium, told AFP.
An "equally disturbing" mutant in South Africa
Since its appearance, the potentially more contagious form of the British mutant has worried European countries.
This Thursday, a British study evoked a virus 50% to 74% more contagious.
This variant in the United Kingdom is not the only one to cause concern.
South Africa has also detected a similar variant, "
very worrying
" according to the British Minister of Health Matt Hancock.
Like its British cousin, this mutation is said to be almost 50% more contagious, and this as the country approaches one million cases and has more than 25,000 deaths from covid-19.
On Thursday, Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize defended himself, saying there was "
no evidence that it causes a more serious form of the disease or increased mortality
".
Read also: Covid-19: according to South Africa, its variant is not more dangerous than the British
On the eve of the launch of the vaccination campaign in Europe, the new mutants should not however alter the effectiveness of the vaccine according to most experts.
"At
the moment there is no evidence to suggest
" that the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine "
is not effective against the new variant,
" said the European Medicines Agency.