Breaking News – Spanish Covid strain ‘now accounts for most UK cases’

A SPANISH mutated Covid strain that originated in Spanish farm workers has spread rapidly through Europe and now accounts for most UK cases, a new study suggests.

The variant called 20A.EU1 is known to have spread from farmworkers to local populations in Spain in June and July.

People returning from holidays in Spain over the summer are believed to have played a key role in spreading the strain across Europe.

The study found that in Wales and Scotland the variant accounted for around a shocking 80 per cent of cases in mid-September, whereas frequencies in England were around 50 per cent at that time.

Experts behind the study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed in a medical journal, said there is currently no evidence the strain spreads faster than other strains of Covid-19.

There is also no suggestion it causes more severe disease or would affect how a vaccine works. Dr Emma Hodcroft, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Basel and lead author of the study, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, ‘We know there was a super-spreading event among agricultural workers in Spain, that then the virus was able to jump into the local population and start moving more generally around Spain.

‘This happened in June and July, right when travel was picking up again in Europe, and of course, Spain’s a wonderful holiday destination and many people headed there.

‘What we think happened is that rising of cases in Spain combined with that increase in holiday travel allowed the virus to move to many different countries across Europe and, when it got there, it was able to spread quite successfully.’ Dr Hodcroft said the movement of people allowed the variant to spread, rather than any suggestion the strain was particularly powerful or dangerous’.

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