Denmark has discovered a new mutant strain of the coronavirus derived from mink farms in the north of the country. The Danish authorities fear that this mutated virus could make a future corona vaccine less effective for humans. As a precaution, the country therefore has all 17 million mink killed.
Five questions about these mutations found.
What kind of mutations are these and how dangerous are they?
Denmark has discovered five variants of the virus that come from mink.
One of those variants is cluster 5. The Danish health institute (SSI) is most concerned about this.
Research showed that the cluster 5 virus turned out to be less sensitive to antibodies, which are supposed to stop the virus.
According to Danish top epidemiologist Kare Molbak, cluster 5 is no more dangerous or more contagious than the coronavirus as we know it today, but the mutation may mean that vaccines that are currently being worked on will prove less effective.
Clusters 2, 3 and 4 are still investigating whether they are less sensitive to antibodies.
This turned out not to be the case with cluster 1.
How far has the mutated virus spread?
Variants of the coronavirus from mink were found in 214 Danes between June and October.
Twelve cases concerned cluster 5. This variant was also found in mink at at least five breeding farms in North Jutland in the north of the country.
This type has not yet emerged outside of Northern Jutland.
Read more: Five questions about the mutations in the coronavirus in Danish mink | tellerreport.com
msamba 
This mutation 5 has seemingly disappeared into blue air, which did not hinder them to start killing the minks, without backing of the parliament, by the way, so now they had to stop the killing, because they did not get the 2 thirds majority that they would need for an emergency law. Now they have to try for a normal law, for which they only need simple majority. Our Government will face huge and expensive expropriation law suits, if the the parliament votes against the proposed mink killing law. They can definitely be taken to court for the killing of a lot of minks without the backing of any law. At the same time they locked in the seven mink breeding municipalities. People are not allowed to cross the border of their municipality. Nobody knows for sure, if this is a recommendation or more. If one crosses the border, there won’t be any legal repercussions, but school children are not to go to school, if they have to cross municipality borders. There isn’t any public transport within those municipalities. We don’t get any clear statements really, the Minister of State uses different synonyms for recommendation, but in reality, people have to abide by them.
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I have to rectify my statement, the emergency law is only presented today, although research has shown that it would not get the required majority (one third, not two thirds as mentioned by me above). They did start to kill the mink already though, without any law. They burnt them ALIVE, so I really am a bit upset about this business.
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I can see the argument for culling them as a precaution, but they should present their arguments clearly and do so in a humane and legal way. The plague isn’t an excuse to lose our sense of decency. Shame there isn’t another solution that saves both species (especially since the mink caught the disease from their handlers)!
I wonder what the other jurisdictions with mink farms (and evidence of some cross contamination) are doing?
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I have heard that the Netherlands have killed minks in June already and Germany in July. USA is starting now. The law in Denmark says that in case of an epidemic, the sick animals should be put down and all the animals of farms that are in a radius of 7,8 kilometres of the contaminated farm; but not all animals in the country, especially not healhy ones. Our State Minister will have to answer for her illegal decision, which she, of course, calls a misunderstanding. One of the centre parties has insisted on a vote on no confidence, which will be voted upon during the next parliament session. That should be interesting.
But burning the animals alive, that’s barbaric.
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I agree!
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