Credit: New Jersey National Guard via Flickr
Minnesota now sees outbreaks of the British variant of COVID-19 in four provinces, health officials announced Friday.
Director of Infectious Diseases in Minnesota, Department of Health, Kris Ehresmann says several cases of the B.1.1.7. variant is now found in Scott County, Blue Earth County, and an area of St. Louis. Louis County near Aurora in the Iron Range.
This is in addition to Carver County, which has seen dozens of different cases over the past few weeks, and the spread of which contact detection is related to youth sports and recreation.
MDH said a two-day COVID testing event would be held Monday and Tuesday at the Aurora Community Center, while choosing Mankato – in Blue Earth County – as the site for its 7th permanent community vaccination site.
Scientists say the UK variant of SARS-CoV-2 can be up to 70% more contagious than the most common virus strain, and a study has suggested it could also be more deadly.
The Star Tribune on Sunday revealed how MDH mapped the outbreak in Carver County, showing how the variant is rapidly transmitted by sports teams and schools, revealing that an outbreak of at least 12 infections at a primary school to one individual to a sports team linked. with five infections.
Its rise in Minnesota coincided with the state’s COVID-19 cases that have increased again in recent weeks, and have been steadily declining since the peak at the end of November.
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Hospitalizations also increased, with 316 people hospitalized with COVID-19 from March 18, an increase of more than 100 at the recent low of 210 on March 6.
This has caused concern among health officials who fear another significant increase in cases before most of Minnesota’s population is vaccinated.
Ehresmann described the state as a ‘race between the variant and the vaccine’. Cases of the South African and Brazilian variants have also been confirmed in Minnesota.
It is believed that all three of the vaccines currently available in the United States, Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, retain their efficacy against the British variant, although the early results are mixed for the South African and Brazilian variants.