Ashish Jha on why he is worried about the spread of the British variant

Ashish Jha on why he is worried about the spread of the British variant

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Dr. Ashish Jha said on Monday that the United States was “on the road to recovery” from COVID-19, but there are some “bumps in front”.

One of the larger is the virus variant that was first detected in the UK, B.1.1.7, which spreads more easily and faster than other strains.

So far, 690 cases of the variant have been detected in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which warned B.1.1.7. can become the dominant source coronavirus infections in March in the country. According to the CDC, seven cases have so far been confirmed in Massachusetts.

Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, said Monday that the United States is seeing positive trends, including declining infection rates and hospitalizations. He also expects vaccines to be ‘plentiful’ by late spring.

“Is optimistic about late spring and summer,” Jha wrote on Twitter. “But worried about the next few months.”

The doctor pointed to data from Ireland and Germany that illustrate how B.1.1.7 can ‘quickly overwhelm a nation’. Ireland, he noted, used a barrier in October to get infections under control. But when the British variant began circulating, the country saw ‘exponential growth’ as ​​its number of cases increased steadily over three weeks. The country is completely closed by the end of December.

According to Jha, there were 132 new cases per 100,000 people in early January, a rate the US has never seen before.

‘Our holiday boom was small in comparison, ”Jha wrote.

As it is, Jha estimates that ‘maybe’ 2 percent of COVID-19 infections in the US are caused by the British variant.

“But we do not know, because we are not doing enough surveillance yet,” he wrote. ‘So most public health experts expect an increase in B117. But we can avoid a horrific peak that flattens our hospitals and kills tens of thousands. ‘

To prepare for and prevent such a surge of the variant, the United States must “significantly increase” genomic surveillance to search for the strain.

Once infections begin to creep in, he must act quickly to stem the spread, he said.

“Our vaccines will work against B.1.1.7,” Jha wrote. ‘And they will blunt the consequences for people at high risk if we can get them into their arms fast enough. Today’s analysis shows that B117 will become widespread in the US, but that does not have to flatten us. We have the tools to defeat it. ”

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