Experts said fears of a ‘fourth wave’ hitting the US may have been exceeded as Florida continues to record cases of falling coronavirus and deaths, although there are more cases of the UK’s super-COVID variant than any other state.
CDC data show that a fifth of all U.S. cases of the more contagious and deadly B.1.1.7 strain first detected in the south of England are from the Sunshine States.
In total, Florida has recorded 690 cases, dwarfing much of the rest of the U.S., where 44 of all 50 states have recorded fewer than 100 cases. The second highest state of Michigan has 563, followed by Colorado with 267.
The emergence of the new strain on U.S. soil sparked fears of a fourth wave of the virus, just as the country recovered and reopened states.
Florida has turned a blind eye to the fact that the state has – in addition to the large number of different cases – also pursued one of the most aggressive reopening plans and no mask mandate in place.
Over the past few weeks, parts of maskless springbreakers have been pouring into bars and beaches and Governor Ron DeSantis has urged people to visit the state to get his economy back on track.
But while fears grew that the tension and loosening of the rules would create a melting pot for the new virus strain, cases and deaths still followed a downward trend in the state.
CDC data show that a fifth of all US cases of the more contagious and deadly B.1.1.7 strain first observed in the south of England are from the Sunshine State
The dark line in this graph shows the seven-day average of the new B.1.1.7 strain as part of all new cases in Florida. This shows the variant that made up 33 percent of all new business on February 25, the date for which data was last available.
Dr Eric Topol of Scripps Research told Yahoo News that Florida was a test case to see if the US would destroy the new tribe.
“We have a clock to know if the B.1.1.7 voltage will hit the US – Florida,” he told Yahoo.
And so far, the appearance of the new strain has not translated into more deaths or cases of the virus.
‘And there is no sign of an increase in business. All good so far, ‘he said.
“The good news from Florida is an encouraging sign for the rest of us. That does not mean America is out of the woods. “But it shows that we can show up sooner than we thought,” Andrew Romano wrote to Yahoo News.
In Florida, there has been a 75% decrease in total cases since January 75th.
The state’s latest COVID boom peaked on January 8 with 84 daily new cases per 100,000 residents, but the cases gradually declined to 22 per 100,000 on Thursday.
Hospitalizations also declined by half over the same period, as did the positive percentage of Florida, which is now at 4.88 percent.
Deaths also declined sharply with five deaths recorded on Thursday, compared to 131 exactly one month ago on 11 February.
This is despite the new variant, which accounts for nearly a fifth of all new cases in the state between December 19 – when the first case of the new strain was detected in Florida – and February 25, according to Outbreak.info.
The data show that 18 percent of cases at this time are the new strain.
Florida leads the country in confirmed cases of the British variant with 690, while most other countries have less than 100 cases of tension
College students came to Florida during the spring break with beaches in Fort Lauderdale, full of maskless revelers
A mix of springbreakers, families and locals on Cocoa Beach this week
“If cases in Florida continue to decline despite the spread of variants, the variant may not be as bad as predicted,” PhD epidemiologist Suzanne Judd (not pictured) told DailyMail.com. Above, the springbreakers descend Thursday in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Yet new business in Florida continued to decline, by 75% from early January, despite the judgment of the doomsday over the Super Bowl and the easing of business restrictions.
However, its dominance increases the data, with the seven-day moving average on February 25 at 33 percent, the date for which the data was last available.
Earlier this week, separate researchers estimated that B117 has actually reached more than half of all new business in Florida, after making up just 4 percent of the business a month ago.
In total, the 690 cases of the new variant account for a small portion of the 1.9 million cases Florida has recorded since last March.
That said, health experts estimate the true number of variant cases in Florida is much higher than official figures, as less than 1 percent of cases are tested for mutations.
Strange warnings have been issued by British officials that the B117 variant is up to 70 percent more contagious than previous strands, and new research suggests it is twice as deadly, raising fears that a varying surge could exceed vaccine vaccination .
While Florida suggests that fears may be overemphasized, experts say the data needs to be constantly monitored.
The percentage of Florida’s targets of no-target failure ‘, the vast majority of which are B117 cases, is above 50% this week.
Deaths have dropped sharply in Florida as hospitalizations and cases have also declined.
“I think we’re just watching the data. If cases in Florida continue to decline despite the spread of variants, the variant may not be as bad as predicted, ‘said Suzanne Judd, a PhD epidemiologist at the University of Alabama at the School of Public Health in Birmingham. , told DailyMail.com.
“That’s why we should avoid speculating about variants until we have the data,” she added.
Some experts believe that the positive signs that the variant is not causing a new wave may at least partly amount to the roll-out of the vaccine.
Meanwhile, 18.5 percent of Floridians have received at least one dose of COVID vaccine, and 10 percent are now fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.
Judd, the epidemiologist, pointed out that data from Israel showed that even partial vaccination appears to limit the spread of B117, suggesting that vaccination of vaccines would arrive just in time.
‘While the variant spread rapidly in the UK, there was little data on how it would spread in the population with some vaccination,’ she said.
College students came to Florida during the spring break with beaches in Fort Lauderdale, full of maskless revelers. Florida is the B117 capital of the USA but has less
Meanwhile, worrying new investigations have emerged suggesting that the B117 variant, also known in the UK as the ‘Kent variant’, is more deadly and also more contagious.
The more contagious variant, which migrated through the UK late last year before spreading around the world, is between 30 and 100 per cent more deadly, a new study has found.
Epidemiologists from the Universities of Exeter and Bristol said the data suggested that the variant was associated with a significantly higher mortality rate among adults compared to previously circulating strains.
Robert Challen, of the University of Exeter, lead author of the study, said: ‘In the community, the death of Covid-19 is still a rare occurrence, but the B117 variant increases the risk.
“Together with its ability to spread rapidly, it makes B117 a threat that needs to be taken seriously.”
Researchers looked at mortality rates among people infected with the new variant and those infected with other strains.
They found that the variant first detected in Kent resulted in 227 deaths in a sample of 54,906 patients – compared with 141 among the same number of patients who were the fit at the previous pass.
Mutations of the virus have raised concerns about whether vaccines against the new strains, including the B117 strain, will be effective.
But research suggests that the Pfizer jab is just as effective against the coronavirus variant as it was against the original pandemic strain, and other studies suggest that the Moderna vaccine is also very effective against the variant.