How worried should we be about a mutant strain of Coronavirus found in Denmark’s mink farms? The virus was found on its farms in June, and it emerged a few days ago that a dozen people had been infected with a strain of Covid called ‘Cluster 5’. This has raised the prospect of a new, more virulent vaccine-proof strain: a prospect dismissed in some places but being taken very seriously in 10 Downing St. So seriously that Britain has just become the only country in the world to close its borders to anyone from Denmark.
Francois Balloux, a professor of genetics at University College London has downplayed it as a story “making the rounds on Twitter.” We already know that humans can catch the coronavirus from minks, he says, as from a great many other animals. And there been thousands of mutations in the virus.
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