British Covid-19 strain spreading in Poland

The UK coronavirus variant has increased its share of Covid-19 infections in Poland to 9 percent, the health minister has said. Adam Niedzielski told the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, on Thursday that the firsts tests carried had shown the variant accounted for 5 percent of infections. "Now the share has increased, and constitutes 9 percent, and that is one of the factors speeding up the pandemic," he added. British experts have recently reported that the B.1.1.7 variant of the coronavirus is not only more contagious by 50-75 percent, but is also possibly associated with a higher risk of hospitalisation and death.