The coronavirus variant B.1.1.7, originally discovered in Great Britain, continues to spread in the Czech Republic. However, new studies have shown extreme regional differences, as the state health authority SZU announced today.
According to the information, the proportion of the more contagious variant in the Trutnov district in the border triangle with Poland and Germany was already around 60 percent of the samples sequenced. In Prague, however, the proportion of mutations was less than ten percent.
The agency comes to the conclusion that the monitoring of the mutations, which was previously concentrated in the capital, needs to be expanded nationwide. The Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis also warned of the dangers of new virus variants.
“The virus attacks, it mutates,” said the 66-year-old, “it’s a killer.” They didn’t have enough vaccine available. The politician went on a visit to Serbia to find out about the use of Russian and Chinese vaccines.
In the Czech Republic there is currently a tough lockdown with a night curfew. Most of the shops are closed. Yet the numbers are not going down any further. Today, the authorities reported 10,165 new infections within 24 hours – more in one day than since mid-January. There have been more than one million detected infections and 17,642 deaths since the pandemic began. The EU member state has around 10.7 million inhabitants.
