Delta variant begins to spread, threatening EU's covid progress – FT
|The Delta coronavirus variant, which first emerged in India, appeared in clusters across Germany, France and Spain and raised concerns amongst the European health officials, according to the Financial Times (FT).
Key takeaways
“While the new strain, which first emerged in India, still only accounts for a fraction of the total coronavirus cases in mainland Europe, it is gaining ground, according to a Financial Times analysis of global genomic data from the virus tracking database Gisaid.”
“It accounts for 96 per cent of sequenced COVID-19 infections in Portugal, more than 20 per cent in Italy and about 16 per cent in Belgium, the FT's calculations show.”
“Scientists across the continent are now looking to the UK -- where COVID-19 cases have tripled in the past month and the Delta variant accounts for about 98 per cent of all new infections -- for clues about what may happen next and which measures may need to be taken.”
“French authorities are currently trying to contain an outbreak in the Landes region, near the Spanish border, where 125 cases of the Delta variant have been confirmed by genetic sequencing and another 130 are suspected, representing about 30 per cent of recent infections in the area.”
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