The South African COVID-19 variant was found in a Nassau County resident, Andrew M. Cuomo, on Sunday in the first confirmed case of the variant contracted by someone living in New York.
Sequencing of a sample of the individual done in a laboratory in New York City and confirmed in the state’s Wadsworth Center laboratory showed that it contained the South African variant, Cuomo said in a news release.
The individual lives in Glen Head, says Jordan Carmon, a spokeswoman for Nassau County CEO Laura Curran.
Scientists and health officials believe that the South African and British variants of COVID-19 appear to spread faster than the current dominant strain, but more research is needed to determine whether they respond more lethally or less to current vaccines.
According to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center, there have been more than 28 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. since the pandemic began a year ago.
The nation was on the verge of reaching the grim milestone of 500,000 deaths from Sunday afternoon. But the announcement of the state’s first case of the South African tribe came when the rate of positive COVID-19 cases in New York fell below 3% for the first time since November 23.
The South African variant was first identified in the United States in South Carolina at the end of last month. Cuomo said a Connecticut resident hospitalized in New York City also had the variant.
As of Saturday, 136 cases of the British variant of COVID-19 have been detected in the state, including 10 in Nassau County and 12 in Suffolk County.
The experts probably said that the residents of Glen Head who tested positive for the South African variant are not the only Long Islander.
“We still do not really have much clarity on how many cases of these variants exist in our area,” said Dr David Hirschwerk, an expert in infectious diseases and interim chair of medicine at the Zucker School of Medicine in Hofstra / Northwell in Hempstead, said. “From now on, a small percentage of positive tests will undergo genetic sequencing. These types of tests will gradually increase.”
Complex genomic sequencing tests help researchers detect COVID-19 variants. Last week, The Associated Press reported that White House officials said there were not enough laboratories across the country processing samples for COVID-19 genomic sequencing and promised nearly $ 200 million to expand to about 25,000 samples. per week. This is about three times the current level.
According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, scientists in the UK said the variant could be ‘associated with an increased risk of death compared to other variants’, but that more studies are needed to confirm this finding.
According to the CDC, the British and South African variants spread more easily and faster than other variants. They still do not know how widely they have spread and how this could affect the vaccines, tests and COVID-19 therapies.
“(The South African tribe) is probably a tribe that spreads more easily, but exactly how much more and whether it is more virulent – the information is still pending,” Hirschwerk said.
Although there is uncertainty about how effective the available COVID-19 vaccines are against variants, Hirschwerk has asked people to be vaccinated when they are eligible. Vaccinations would, at the very least, reduce the chance of getting a serious form of the disease, even if they were infected with a variant, he said.
‘There’s a huge benefit to getting the vaccines, not just because it’s so. [South African] strain is probably still a small portion of the strains we see, but the vaccine holds a strong advantage against the British strain as well as the standard strain, ‘he said.
The state recorded 6,610 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, including 546 in Nassau County and 513 in Suffolk County. Based on 221,157 test results, the daily positivity rate was 2.99%. It remained higher on Long Island by 4.2%, according to statistics released by the state.
The new figures showed a continuous decrease in the number of new cases after an increase after the holiday period. On January 5, the state’s daily positivity rate was 8.4%
“We are still seeing a decline in positivity and hospitalizations across the country, which is good news, and this progress allows us to open the valve in our economy even further,” Cuomo said in a statement. “But with the discovery of a case of the South African variant in the state, it is more important than ever for New Yorkers to be vigilant, wear masks, wash their hands and stay socially aloof. We are currently in a race – between our ability to vaccinate and these variants that are actively trying to multiply – and we will only win that race if we stay smart and disciplined. ‘
The state recorded 75 additional deaths to COVID-19 on Saturday, including four in Nassau County and nine in Suffolk County.
In a statement, Curran said: “We do not believe the South African variant is more deadly, but it may be more contagious. The best response is to continue the tried and tested precautions: wear masks, avoid social gatherings, distance yourself, stay home and get sick. ‘
Suffolk officials could not be reached for comment on the presence of the South African variant in Nassau.
Attempts to vaccinate more than 10 million eligible New Yorkers against COVID-19 have been hampered, according to the state, because the winter storms delayed federal shipments. More than 2.2 million people in the state received their first dose of the vaccine and more than 1.1 million received a second dose, statistics showed.
A total of 416,577 first and second doses have been administered to Long Island to date.
With Jesse Coburn
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The South African variant
- Originally detected in October 2020.
- In January, South Carolina reported the first U.S. case.
- So far, 22 cases of this variant have been detected in ten states in the USA
- The CDC does not know how widely this variant has spread.
- It is believed that the varieties from South Africa, the United Kingdom and Brazil spread more easily and faster than other varieties.
- It is also not yet clear how this variant affects the existing COVID-19 treatments, vaccines and tests.
- No current evidence that infections by the variant cause more serious diseases.
Source: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Lisa joined Newsday in 2019 as a staff writer. She has previously worked at amNewYork, the New York Daily News and the Asbury Park Press on politics, government and general commissions.