A new variant of coronavirus, called Nimbus, is currently spreading worldwide and is also on the rise in Switzerland. +Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox Nimbus will not be more dangerous than previous variants, but experts warn of a summer wave. Systematic testing for coronavirus has not been carried out in Switzerland for some time. However, experts commissioned by the federal government are still closely monitoring the virus's activity. Thanks to samples from wastewater treatment plants, they are gaining a fairly accurate picture of how frequently the virus occurs. Overall, wastewater monitoring is very helpful, says Niko Beerenwinkel, a professor of bioinformatics at the University of Basel. "In principle, you can actually detect new variants in wastewater very quickly," says Beerenwinkel. However, this task becomes challenging when new virus variants emerge. Initially, the traces cannot be identified. This has happened in recent weeks. "We can see from ...
