The airport drain: imported cases double since the alert of new strains

The number of imported coronavirus cases has doubled since December 14. On that day, UK authorities informed the World Health Organization (WHO) that a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 had been identified among the new strains. This mutation, with a greater contagion capacity and which the Government has downplayed here, is now dominant throughout Spain. On December 14, the Ministry of Health reported 4,297 cases imported from another country in its daily balances. The latest update collects 8,294. In this time, the British strain has spread throughout all the autonomous communities, displacing the previous variants. But other strains have also appeared that are cause for international concern, such as the Brazilian, the South African or the Indian. Health still does not include the latter among the variants of “greatest impact on public health” and lists it as a strain “of interest”, despite the alarming figures recorded by India, with 300,000 infections and 4,000 deaths every day. Health defends its protocols at airports. Tourists must prove a negative PCR carried out at least three days before traveling – a restriction that since Monday does not apply to those from the United Kingdom – but the Government hardly performs random tests to check their health when they finally arrive Spain. Strains in Spain Those measures have not thus prevented the strains from entering Spain, as the Ministry of Health itself confirms. The latest updated balance admits that cases of up to 11 mutations have been confirmed. Some of them are still investigating their ability to escape the immune response.In the case of the Indian variant, Health recognizes that several outbreaks have been located, the last one, with seven cases, although the majority come from travelers by boat. It is striking that many of the cases of mutations reported by the Ministry do not establish a link with international travel. Thus, for example, there is talk of a hospital outbreak of the Brazilian strain with nine cases “with no known links to Brazil” or 26 infections of the Californian variant, “most of them with no known relationship to travel.” de Madrid insists on the urgency of greater controls at airports, a constant claim since the beginning of the pandemic. Acting Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, continues with her plans to carry out an investigation commission in the Assembly of Madrid on traffic at Barajas airport and its relationship with the expansion of Covid-19 in the region. “To be more efficient and, above all, to protect citizens in the face of summer, this is important to study”, the ‘popular’ leader pointed out. The intention is to know what are the measures that are being implemented to control the entry of the virus, the affected travelers and the route of these cases, among other issues.