Variants, 4 “red” municipalities in Lombardy, in Naples a mutation never seen before

It begins to close and the red areas return. The variants of the coronavirus are scary and infections increase too rapidly. At the moment we proceed with lockdown mirati in the most affected areas, before deciding whether to put the whole of Italy back into quarantine.

The first red areas from today, February 17th

Therefore, following the emergence of contagion clusters, the red zone is introduced in Lombardy starting today, Wednesday, in the municipalities of Viggiù (Varese), Mede (Pavia), Castrezzato (Brescia) and Bollate (Milan).

Here starting from 6pm tomorrow Wednesday 17 February, stop to all non-essential commercial activities, closing of bars and restaurants. Remote school, also for kindergartens and schools.

There is not only Lombardy

I’m also worried Marche and Umbria. In Puglia the presence of the variant rose to 38.6% in less than ten days. About the same time period in Emilia Romagna the presence of the “English” rose from 28 to 38%.

Meanwhile, cases are reported almost everywhere. In recent days, 30 have been found in Rome, 15 in Milan, 18 in Brescia, 11 in Abruzzo (of which 3 of “Brazilian”). And the investigations to look for the variants were made only on a part of the positive swabs.

The super-variant discovered in Naples

In Naples, however, as if the variants we already have were not enough, a still different one was found, discovered among other things in about thirty cases in England.

It has the E484K mutation on the spike protein, that which is on the outside of the virus and which is targeted by the immune system. The feature, similar to that present on the South African variant, it is considered worrying because it would make some vaccines less effective.