Two hospitals in the German state of Bavaria have started self-quarantining on Wednesday after preliminary tests showed 11 people connected to the facilities were potentially carrying the UK coronavirus variant B1.1.7.
The two hospitals — the Klinikum Bayreuth and Krankenhaus Hohe Warte — located in the town of Bayreuth, east of Frankfurt, have stopped admitting new patients except those in a very serious condition.
Frank Schmälzle, head of press and public relations at the Klinikum Bayreuth, told CNN that a total of 3,300 staff from both hospitals are only allowed to commute between the facilities and their homes during the quarantine period.
Schmälzle said a total of 560 patients were being treated across both hospitals.
Professor Juergen Duner, chief medical officer at the laboratory Becker & Kollegen, meanwhile told CNN that there was a rise in the new coronavirus mutations B1.1.7 and B1.351 in the area of Munich, the Bavarian state capital.
“In less than three weeks, the proportion of variants in infections has risen sharply from 0.2 percent to 7 percent,” Duner said.
“That in itself is a clear sign that the new variants are currently spreading very quickly.”
Some background:
The move to self-quarantine the two hospitals comes just days after the Vivantes Humboldt-Klinikum hospital in Berlin was placed under quarantine following an outbreak among both patients and staff of the coronavirus variant first detected in the UK.
On Tuesday, 24 cases of the UK variant were detected at the hospital — in 13 patients and 11 members of staff, the hospital confirmed.
In a different Berlin hospital, the Klinikum Spandau, two additional cases have been identified in patients.
