14 German care home residents test positive for UK Covid-19 strain after getting 2nd Pfizer jab

More than a dozen elderly care home residents in north-western Germany have been infected with the UK coronavirus strain around a week after receiving the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine, local authorities have said.

The first positive Covid-19 cases in the care home in the town of Belm, near Osnabrueck, were discovered on February 2 following routine daily rapid testing, the local authorities said in a statement. The care home administration then tested all the facility residents and employees to discover that a total of 14 people were infected.

Analysis of the test samples also revealed that all those infected had a strain of coronavirus first detected in the UK and considered to be much more infectious than the original. Even more worrying was the fact that all those infected received their second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine no later than January 25.

It was unclear when or why those infected caught the disease, as all 14 cases were either totally asymptomatic or displayed only mild symptoms. Local authorities placed the entire care home, all its staff and their families under quarantine, as well as informing authorities in the neighboring areas about the situation.

Those care home employees who tested negative for Covid-19 were still only allowed to leave their homes to get to work.

It is unclear if this outbreak of the UK Covid-19 strain in Belm is a cause for concern. According to the German media, the care home residents could very well have been infected even before receiving the second dose, or within a week after getting it, at which time full immune protection would not yet have been in place.

It was unclear when or why those infected caught the disease, as all 14 cases were either totally asymptomatic or displayed only mild symptoms. Local authorities placed the entire care home, all its staff and their families under quarantine, as well as informing authorities in the neighboring areas about the situation.

Those care home employees who tested negative for Covid-19 were still only allowed to leave their homes to get to work.

It is unclear if this outbreak of the UK Covid-19 strain in Belm is a cause for concern. According to the German media, the care home residents could very well have been infected even before receiving the second dose, or within a week after getting it, at which time full immune protection would not yet have been in place.

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