Reports of an extremely contagious new variant in the United States, published by several newspapers on Friday, are based on speculative statements by dr. Deborah Birx and is inaccurate according to several government officials.
© Mandel Ngan / Agence France-Presse – Getty Images
Dr. Deborah Birx at an information session of the Coronavirus Task Force in the White House last year.
The erroneous report arose during a recent meeting where dr. Birx, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, presented graphs of the increasing cases in the country. She suggested to other members of the task force that a new, more transferable variant from the US could explain the boom, as another variant did in Britain.
Her hypothesis made it into a weekly report sent to state governors. ‘This autumn / winter boom was almost twice the increase in cases such as spring and summer. This acceleration suggests that there may be a US variant that has developed here, in addition to the British variant that is already spreading in our communities and which is 50% more transmissible, “the report reads.” Aggressive mitigation should be used to more aggressive virus matching. “
Discouraged, officials at the CDC tried to have the speculative statements removed, but according to three people who know the events, it was unsuccessful.
CDC officials disagree with her assessment and ask to have it removed, but according to one frustrated CDC official, they said no, out of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
Dr. Birx could not be immediately reached for comment.
The news of a possible new variant only appeared on CNBC on Friday afternoon and spread quickly to other stores. The CDC issued a formal statement on media questions about the variant, refuting the theory.
“Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are monitoring all emerging variants of the coronavirus, including 5,700 samples collected in November and December,” said Jason McDonald, a spokesman for the agency. “To date, neither researchers nor CDC analysts have seen the emergence of a specific variant in the United States,” he said.
Among the variants distributed in the US is B.1.1.7, which was first identified in Britain and now runs a boom and overwhelming hospitals there. The variant has been spotted in a handful of states, but the CDC estimates that so far it accounts for less than 0.5 percent of cases in the country.
Another variant circulating at low levels in the US, known as B 1.346, contains a deletion that can weaken the power of vaccines. “But I did not see anything with increased transfer,” said Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona, who discovered the variant.
According to the CDC scientist who spoke anonymously, it is probably no more contagious than other variants in the United States, and is less than 0.5 percent of the cases. to talk about the matter.
All viruses develop, and the coronavirus does not differ. “Based on scientific understanding of viruses, it is very likely that many variants are evolving simultaneously around the world,” he said. McDonald, of the CDC, said. “However, it can take weeks or months to determine if there is a single variant of the virus that causes Covid-19 to fuel the boom in the United States, similar to the boom in the United Kingdom.”
Carl Zimmer reports from New Haven and Noah Weiland from Washington DC
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