One person recently returned from domestic travel to a U.S. state with confirmed cases of British stress before becoming ill, and the second person determined to have the variant was a close contact with the first person, the Department of Health said.
An additional case of the British variant is suspected and is being investigated. The person also came into close contact with the person who traveled domestically, said Kirby Kruger, director of disease control at the health department.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the British variant is more contagious than other strains of the virus. Other COVID-19 strains originate in Brazil and South Africa. Scientists estimate that the British variant is between 35% and 45% more transmissible than the strains commonly found in the USA. Some experts believe that the British variant is more lethal, but the CDC says further investigation is needed to confirm this finding.
Although the variants are genetically different from each other and the strains commonly found in the US, early studies show that the COVID-19 vaccines administered nationwide are effective against the variants, according to the CDC.
Determining whether a positive COVID-19 test is the result of a variant is a multi-step process for North Dakota’s public health lab, Kruger said. The laboratory processes some of the COVID-19 PCR tests from the state (also called molecular tests, which differ from the fast antigen tests) and examines three “targets” of the virus for each test. If one of the targets appears abnormal, then the laboratory analyzes it further for genome sequencing. Based on the sequence, health officials can determine whether the COVID-19 positive test contains the same genetic makeup as the UK variant.
The two people who tested positive for the British tribe and the third suspected case were in isolation. But when the lab was able to confirm that they were positive for the variant by genome sequence, the three exceeded their ten days in isolation and were no longer contagious, Kruger said.
The health department did not want to provide further information about the three individuals, including age, gender or country where they live.
Kruger said the department does not want to give residents a “false sense of security” because the two confirmed cases and one alleged case with the variant have been repaired. “There is certainly no guarantee that they are the only ones in North Dakota,” he said.
For tests sent out of state for processing, Kruger said at least one of the labs is sending information about the positive things to North Dakota for further investigation to see if there are variants, but that is not the case for not all laboratories. Therefore, there are likely to be more cases in the state.
Some of the labs are also doing their own testing, though Kruger said he “does not know to what extent this is happening.”
Additional tribes, such as those that originated in Brazil and South Africa, cannot be traced in the same way as the British tribe. Kruger says the North Dakota lab is doing random selection tests for them by examining 48 random positive tests for the tribes each week. Last month, Minnesota confirmed the first case of the Brazilian variant in the country.
Kruger stressed that people should continue to distance themselves socially, wear proper masks and good hygiene to prevent the spread of the virus.
As of Tuesday, there were 1,299 confirmed cases caused by COVID-19 variants in the US, with at least 42 states reporting confirmed cases of the British strain according to the CDC.
Sanford Health now has the ability to test for variants.
The identification of variants is usually not important in the treatment of COVID-19, says dr. Avish Nagpal, who is in charge of infection control at Sanford in Fargo. “It’s more for research purposes and epidemiological purposes,” he said.
Detecting coronavirus mutations is important to predict whether the pandemic will cause a surge or trough, and it helps providers prepare for what is to come, Nagpal said. “It’s a kind of cumbersome test, so it’s not possible to do every sample,” he said. Doctors do not have different treatment options for different virus variants.
Vaccination, although gradual, helps control the spread of the virus, Nagpal said. Across North Dakota, 14.1% of residents received at least one dose of vaccine, and active cases, which peaked at more than 10,000 last year, recently remained below 800.
“I do think the worst is behind this pandemic,” he said.
North Dakota reports 123 new cases
The Department of Health on Wednesday reported 123 new cases of COVID-19, including:
According to the Department of Health, no new deaths were reported on Wednesday, but according to the Department of Health, at least 1,431 North Dakotans died as a result of or with COVID-19. More than 61% of deaths occurred in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
COVID-19 hospitalizations declined slightly to 43 residents on Wednesday, which is significantly lower than the more than 350 North Dakotans admitted to the hospital at one point.
Active COVID-19 cases in North Dakota have increased slightly since Tuesday to 797 residents known to be infected with the virus. This is the lowest number of active cases the state has reported since July.
About 2.2% of the 5,457 residents tested as part of the youngest group received a positive result and the average positivity rate of those tested over the past two weeks is about 2.5%.
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Readers can contact reporter Michelle Griffith, a member of the Corps report, at [email protected]. Reporter Patrick Springer contributed to this report.