London The delta sub-variant of coronavirus AY.4.2 is now responsible for more than one in ten new infections in Britain. That ranges from the grand scale react evaluation from Imperial College London, the latest results of which were published today.

Consequently, 11.8 percent of the 841 positive samples sequenced could be assigned to the AY.4.2 subvariant. For the study, PCR tests from more than 100,000 people were evaluated, of which almost 1,400 were positive.

According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), there is no evidence in Germany that the importance of the delta subvariant in the pandemic is increasing. At the moment, AY.4.2 barely plays a role in this country.

Based on the findings, the subvariant is probably spreading faster than the previously dominant delta variant. Since the last study in September, scientists have calculated a daily growth in the AY.4.2 share of 2.8 percent.

At the same time, symptomatic diseases are rarer, the researchers found. Typical symptoms, such as loss or change in sense of smell and taste, fever, and new and persistent cough, also occur with AY.4.2 infections. less common. Overall, the reduced occurrence of symptoms is, of course, a good thing, added study leader Paul Elliott.

How the subvariant will affect the course of the pandemic cannot yet be estimated, said researcher Christl Donnelly, who participated in the study. sky news. Fewer symptomatic cases meant fewer infected cases would be detected, the researcher said. On the other hand, the absence of symptoms such as cough can also reduce the risk of infection.

The subvariant AY.4.2. It is used by the World Health Organization (WHO) has not yet been classified as a cause for concern, but is under observation. It has also been tested in Germany.

From the first detection from the beginning of July to mid-November, 766 hits have been recorded in Germany, the RKI announced on request. The proportion of the subvariant has been relatively constant in random samples around one percent in recent weeks. Therefore, the RKI currently assumes that this variant cannot spread significantly more than other lines under the current infection protection measures in Germany. © dpa/aerzteblatt.de