Italy has detected a patient infected with the mutated strain of coronavirus that emerged in Britain, becoming the fifth country outside the UK to report a case.
The Italian patient flew from the UK to Rome in the last few days with his partner, who did not test positive, Italy’s health ministry said. The pair are now isolating.
So far, cases of the new variant, said to be up to 70 per cent more infectious than regular Covid, have been spotted in Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia and Belgium.
In November there were nine instances of the strain in Denmark and one in Australia, while the Netherlands announced it had detected a case this month. There have also been unconfirmed reports of at least one case in Belgium.
Scotland and Wales have both picked up cases of the strain in recent weeks, although it is spreading predominantly in London and the South East of England, where it’s thought to account for 60 per cent of all new infections.
France’s health minister said this morning it was ‘entirely possible’ the version of the virus was already circulating in France despite tests not picking it up yet, while Northern Ireland’s First Minister said it was ‘probable’ the strain was there, too.
More than a dozen countries – including France, Germany, Italy, Ireland and Canada – have banned travel to and from the UK as part of an international crackdown to contain the mutant strain.
European Union leaders are holding a crisis meeting later today to unify the bloc’s response to prevent the variant becoming more widespread on the continent.
There are now fears Britain’s supermarket shelves could soon stand empty with France’s ban on British lorries set to stop Continental hauliers bringing in vital festive food supplies.
There are also concerns that the chaos could disrupt supplies of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to the UK which is made in Belgium – with military aircraft set to airlift supplies if the ban lasts for longer than 48 hours.
Boris Johnson sparked fury on Saturday after he cancelled Christmas for more than 16million people living in London and across the South East just 72 hours before a five-day break from lockdown was supposed to come into force.
In yet another screeching U-turn, the Prime Minister – who last Wednesday said it would be ‘inhuman’ to cancel Christmas – also slashed a festive amnesty from five days to just one for the rest of the UK.
The PM blamed the new strain and claimed it was 70 per cent more virulent – a figure which has been questioned by top experts who say it’s too early to throw out an exact number.
Italy has detected a patient infected with the mutated strain of coronavirus that emerged in Britain, becoming the fifth country outside the UK to report a case after the variant first emerged in Kent in September
Italy becomes at least the fifth country to report a case of the new variant, named VUI-202012/01, since it first emerged in Britain in September.
The two earliest samples were collected on September 20 in Kent and another the next day in London.
As of mid-December, there were more than 1,000 cases in nearly 60 different local authorities across England, although the true number will be higher.
They have predominantly been found in the south east of England, in Kent and London.
By mid-November, 28 per cent of cases in London were attributable to it. And in the week starting December 9, it was responsible for 62 per cent.
Wales’ health ministers has blamed the new strain for a sharp rise in cases that is sending the country back into a national lockdown on Sunday. Although it’s not clear the exact number of people who’ve tested positive for the variant.
Nicola Sturgeon said at least nine cases have been picked up in Scotland and the First Minister has made it illegal to travel from or to England in a bid to contain the strain.
Nine instances of the strain have also been spotted in Denmark over the last month and the Netherlands said it had found one person carrying the variant so far.
French health minister Olivier Veran said this morning it was possible the new strain of the virus was circulating in France, although recent tests had not detected it in the country.
‘It is entirely possible that the virus is circulating in France,’ Veran told Europe 1 radio.
Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland’s First Minister, told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme: ‘It is probable that it is here and likely it is in the Republic too.’
In its report on Saturday, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said Belgium had also spotted the strain in one of its citizens.
The ECDC recycled Mr Johnson’s claim that the virus could be ‘up to 70 per cent more transmissible’.
But last night one scientist demanded greater transparency over the number that shut down swathes of the UK.
Carl Heneghan, Professor of Evidence Based Medicine at Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care, expressed scepticism over the 70 per cent figure.
He said: ‘I’ve been doing this job for 25 years and I can tell you can’t establish a quantifiable number in such a short time frame.’
He added ‘every expert is saying it’s too early to draw such an inference’.
Professor Heneghan said there was no doubt this time of the year, the ‘height of the viral season’, was a difficult time for the NHS. But he said failure to put out the basis of the figures was undermining public trust.
He added: ‘I would want to have very clear evidence rather than ‘we think it’s more transmissible’ so we can see if it is or not.
‘It has massive implications, it’s causing fear and panic, but we should not be in this situation when the Government is putting out data that is unquantifiable.’
He added: ‘They are fitting the data to the evidence. They see cases rising and they are looking for evidence to explain it.’
Professor Heneghan said that if it was true the new variant was more transmissible ‘we should be locking down the whole country’ as people leaving the capital to avoid restrictions would spread it.
Cancelling Christmas on Saturday, Mr Johnson also said the new virus could boost the reproduction rate – known as R – by 0.4. When R is above 1 the virus is increasing. If it is below 1, it is decreasing.
Mr Johnson said the figure, which came from analysis by government advisory body The New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), was ‘early data’ and ‘subject to review’.
But he added: ‘It’s the best we have at the moment.
‘We have to act on information as we have it because this is spreading very fast.
Shops, gyms, hairdressers and beauty salons were ordered to shut again in London and swathes of the South East, with residents told not to leave Tier Four.
Peter Horby, chairman of Nervtag and Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health at the University of Oxford, said the figure of 70 per cent was based on ‘converging data’.
He said: ‘This is including, but not limited to, the rate of change in the frequency of detection of the variant (the growth rate) and the correlation between R values and the frequency of detection of the new variant.’
Minutes from the Nervtag meeting from December 18 said they had ‘moderate confidence’ that the new variant, known as VUI-202012/01, ‘demonstrates a substantial increase in transmissibility compared to other variants’.
The variant demonstrated exponential growth when national lockdown measures were in place, the minutes added.