The new mutated coronavirus was named 20A.EU1 and is rapidly spreading across Europe.

Scientists have identified a new type of coronavirus and named it 20A.EU1. Now it is rapidly spreading throughout Europe. 

Scientists have found that the second wave of the pandemic in Europe may be related to the mutation of coronavirus among Spanish agricultural workers. Since the summer of 2020, it has spread across much of Western Europe and now accounts for a significant proportion of new COVID-19 infections.

Mutated coronavirus was named 20A.EU1, and people returning from vacations in Spain played a key role in its spread. According to University of Basel geneticist and article author Emma B Hodcroft, the rapid spread of 20A.EU1 shows that quarantine measures were insufficient to contain the pandemic.

She also noted that the 20A.EU1 virus is unlike any known version of the Sars-Cov-2 virus. Scientists are confident that it made the virus more infectious.

Scientist Tanya Stadler from the Zurich Higher Technical School highlights that recently obtained virus samples from all over Europe are based on this variant of the coronavirus. Another co-author of the study, Iñaki Comas, suggests that the new strain may have spread quickly due to the initial outbreak.

More information: Emma B Hodcroft et al. Emergence and spread of a SARS-CoV-2 variant through Europe in the summer of 2020, (2020). DOI: 10.1101/2020.10.25.20219063