Even as scientists in the UK are investigating the impact of a new mutant variant of coronavirus, named VUI-202012/01, on children and whether its faster transmission in parts of England is down to the younger segment of the population, the head of Germany’s disease control center has said it will probably be several weeks before infections in the country, which is nearly a week into a toughened lockdown, start to decline.

In India, the government has intensified its measures and has issued guidelines to monitor those passengers who had reached India from the UK from 25 November, in view of the new Corona strain in Britain.

Germany has seen new coronavirus cases and deaths related to Covid-19 hit record highs over recent weeks, despite a partial shutdown in place since early November. Last Wednesday, nonessential shops and schools were closed in a bid to reverse the trend. Lothar Wieler, the head of the Robert Koch Institute disease control center, said Tuesday that he fears the Christmas period is making the situation worse, despite restrictions on the number of people allowed to gather.

In the UK, the government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) is monitoring the data to analyse this arc of the variant, which has led over 40 countries, including India, to suspend travel to and from the UK in order to try and contain the more infectious mutation.

Earlier strains of coronavirus found it harder to infect children than adults, with one explanation being that children have fewer of the doorways called the ACE2 receptor the virus uses to enter a human body’s cells. Professor Wendy Barclay, from Nervtag and Imperial College London, said the mutations to the virus appeared to be making it easier to breach those doorways. This is a fresh challenge and the whole world should come together to wage a war against virus.