Romania detects first case of British coronavirus variant

Romania has recorded its first case of the British variant of the coronavirus in a 27-year-old woman from the southern county of Giurgiu who had not travelled abroad recently, the spokesman of a Bucharest hospital said on Friday.

Romania has recorded its first case of the British variant of the coronavirus in a 27-year-old woman from the southern county of Giurgiu who had not travelled abroad recently, the spokesman of a Bucharest hospital said on Friday. "If the information given by the patient is true, this means the virus is already circulating in Romania," Catalin Apostolescu, spokesman of the Matei Bals hospital in the capital Bucharest told private television station B1.

"We can expect a rise in the number of cases," he said, adding the patient had light symptoms and was allowed to go home. The European Union state has reported 663,799 coronavirus cases and 16,506 deaths since the virus reached it in February of last year.