British coronavirus strain doubles every ten days in the US, the study finds

The mutant coronavirus strain, first identified in the UK, remains at low levels in the United States, but doubles its range about every ten days, according to a study published Sunday by researchers.

The study reinforced the modeling done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which last month predicted that the more contagious variant could be the dominant strain by March to March.

The US still has time to take steps to slow down the new virus strain, the researchers wrote, but they warned that the variant “without ‘decisive and immediate action for public health’ is likely to have devastating consequences for COVID- 19 deaths and illnesses in the In a few months in the USA. ‘

The research, funded in part by the CDC and the National Institutes of Health, as well as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, has been posted to medRxiv, a pre-service server, and has not yet been peer-reviewed.

The new coronavirus strain, also known as B.1.1.7, spread rapidly throughout the United Kingdom and became the dominant strain in that country, which by some standards was hit the hardest in Europe.

Health officials said existing vaccines are likely to work against new strains, though their effectiveness may be somewhat reduced.

The study found that there are ‘relatively low’ amounts of B.1.1.7. currently in the US, but that it, given its rapid spread, “is almost certainly destined to become the dominant SARS-CoV-2 strain by March 2021.”

According to the study, the new strain accounted for 3.6% of coronavirus cases in the United States.

The researchers noted that detecting the nationwide distribution of the strain is complicated by the lack of a national monitoring program for genomics, such as in the UK, Denmark and other countries.

They wrote that they had ‘relatively robust’ estimates from California and Florida, but that the data outside the states was limited.

The growth rate of the virus differed in the two states, with B.1.1.7. it seems to be spreading somewhat more slowly in California. The authors of the study wrote that the strain doubles nationally approximately every 12.2 days in California, 9.1 days in Florida, and 9.8 days.

The study supports the conclusion that the new tribe is already spreading through ‘significant community transfer’.

According to the authors, the virus was introduced to the country via international travel and spread via domestic travel, while millions of Americans traversed the country through the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year holidays during the fall and winter.

The authors also found that the variant grew somewhat more slowly than in European countries, a fact which they said was necessary, but that it was due to the sparsity of current data or other factors, including ‘competition from other more transferable’ variant. .

Other worrying coronavirus strains have been detected in South Africa and elsewhere.

The researchers warned that their findings reinforce ‘the need’ for strong US surveillance of possible new and emerging coronavirus variants.

“Because laboratories in the U.S. have only a small subset of SARS-CoV-2 sample sequence, the true sequence diversity of SARS-CoV-2 in this country is still unknown,” they wrote.

“The more established surveillance programs in other countries have given important warnings about varieties of concern that could affect the US, with B.1.1.7 representing only one variant showing the potential for exponential growth,” they added.

‘Only with consistent, unbiased order on a scale that includes all geographical and demographic populations, including those that are often under-represented, coupled with continued international scientific collaboration and the sharing of open data, will we be able to develop the new variants introduced during the COVID -19 emerge, accurately assess and follow. pandemic, ‘the researchers wrote.