ARCHIVED - British Covid variant of Covid spreads across Spain: at least 50 cases confirmed and hundreds under study

Seven regions have confirmed cases and two more have suspected cases

The coronavirus saga ebbs and flows. Each time our hopes are raised that the virus seems to be slowly coming under control along comes another bank holiday and politicians cave in to the pressure to permit greater movement and then the week after up goes the number of new cases yet again…….

But this time there’s another element to the story, the so-called “British variant” which is un-nerving those anxiously monitoring the rise of cases across Spain, a new variant revealed by the British Government on December 14th, which spreads rapidly and is highly contagious. And it’s starting to spread here in Spain.

Although UK nationals have been banned from entering Spain unless they have residency and must take a PCR test before leaving the UK, there are already at least 50 cases of the new variant detected in Spain with hundreds more under examination.

The first region to detect the mutation known as B.1.1.7 was Madrid, which notified the Health Ministry of the detection of four cases on December 26th. The origin of these four cases were two passengers who had flown from London. Five days later, the strain had reached another five autonomies and the number of positives amounted to 19 and less than two weeks later there are seven affected regions and another two have suspected cases.

Madrid now has 16 confirmed cases of the new variant and another 70 under study.
Andalusia has also reported 16 cases (1 case was found in Gibraltar during November and there has been concern that the interchange of thousands of workers daily between the British Colony and the Campo de Gibraltar may have permitted the entry of the new variant into Andalucía; Gibraltar has now gone into a full lockdown and the eight worst affected areas of the Campo de Gibraltar have been confined) and in an interview on Antena 3, the regional Minister for Health and Families , Jesús Aguirre, has also reported the existence of "many" samples in genomic sequencing, of which "some come directly by plane and others are contacts of positives who have developed the British strain within the national territory."

The Basque Country has found six cases; the Valencia Region, which today reported its highest figures of new cases ever and is experiencing what the regional government there is calling an “alarming” rate of increase has diagnosed five; Asturias has two, Galicia one, and Cantabria announced on Monday that it had four cases: one primary and three secondary. The first case found there is a person from the United Kingdom who landed with a negative PCR test but who developed symptoms three days after his arrival. The rest are part of the same family group.

Hundreds more cases are being checked, but the problem currently faced is a lack of facilities in which to undertake genomic sequencing of the virus, something that is not possible to carry out in every part of the country.

Samples are being sent to the Majadahonda National Microbiology Center, in Madrid for analysis, but this is delaying the capacity of the authorities to react quickly and decisively when it is suspected that a case may be related to this new variant.

The Canary Islands for example, has two suspect cases in la Palma, but is waiting to receive the necessary reagents to carry out the sequencing process and confirm if it too, has positive cases of the new variant. Extremadura, is also waiting for confirmation that its two suspected cases are B.1.1.7.

In most cases the new variant will be spreading undetected and is only likely to show when there is a sudden increase in new cases in a localised area, but various epidemiologists are questioning why more immediate lockdowns aren´t being implemented in areas where the new variant is being found to try and limit its spread now we know how virulent it is and are witnessing the devastating effects in the UK; today more than 60,000 new cases were reported, another record high.