Anxiety over a reported Coronavirus infection with the British strain has sparked a major police operation in Hamm, western Germany, a police spokeswoman said.
A 100-strong deployment of officers has been working in the city, home to around 180,000 people, since Monday evening, according to agency reports.
An on-site construction worker tested positive for the mutated strain, which first emerged in Britain and is considered more infectious. Four residential buildings were placed under quarantine and the residents there are being tested, with police officers on-site to ensure that they adhere to the quarantine measures.
The British strain – or B117 – is one of three variants of concern that have been identified within Germany by the nation’s agency for disease control, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
Earlier this month, RKI President Lothar Wieler reported that the B117 variant has been found in 13 of Germany’s 16 states, making- up for six per cent of cases, although he warned that that figure would likely rise further.
The German government recently boosted resources to laboratories for sequencing work in order to get a clearer picture of the spread of COVID-19 variants in the country.
