Thread by @yaneerbaryam

Denmark is sequencing all coronavirus samples and has an alarming view of the U.K. variant

"Like a speeding car whose brake lines have been cut, the coronavirus variant first spotted in Britain is spreading at an alarming rate..

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washingtonpost.com/world/europe/u…

".and isn’t responding to established ways of slowing the pandemic, according to Danish scientists who have one of the world’s best views into the new, more contagious strain.

"Cases involving the variant are increasing 70 percent a week in Denmark, despite a strict lockdown

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“We’re losing some of the tools that we have to control the epidemic,” said Tyra Grove Krause, scientific director of the institute, which has begun sequencing every positive coronavirus test to check for mutations.

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"By contrast, the US is sequencing 0.3 percent of cases, ranking it 43rd in the world and leaving it largely blind to the variant’s spread.

"British Prime Minister Boris Johnson suggested for the first time that the variant may be more deadly than previous strains

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'Danish public health officials say that if it weren’t for their extensive monitoring, they would be feeling a false sense of confidence right now. Overall, new daily confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Denmark have been dropping for a month.

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"But the British variant is spreading so quickly that Danish authorities project it will be the dominant strain of the virus in their country as early as mid-February.

"US CDC warned Friday that the U.K. variant, known as B.1.1.7, could be prevalent [in the US] by March.

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"Danish officials say that as a result, daily coronavirus cases there could quadruple by the beginning of April. Charts from the public health institute project that in the worst-case contagion scenarios, even with a strict lockdown in effect, cases would skyrocket.

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