SARATOGA SPRINGS – Officials in Saratoga County say they are working with the state to track down all possible exposures an employee of a jewelry store has to others, after it came to light on Monday that he was the first case of the state of a more contagious coronavirus variant in the United States. Kingdom.
The state on Monday tested and tested five more people associated with the N. Fox Jewelers store in Saratoga Springs. Four of them tested positive for the virus causing COVID-19, but were further tested on Tuesday to determine if they were infected with the new B117 variant, the country said. Of the four who tested positive, it was previously known that three were positive, and one was ill and isolating before learning of their test result, the country said.
No extra people tested positive for the variant on Tuesday night, the country said.
“This is going to happen to us in a sense,” Mike McEvoy, EMS coordinator for the province, said during a Facebook Live event on Tuesday. “If there is a widespread outbreak of (the variant), we will have sick people in a community faster and our ability to care for the people in public health and in hospitals could be jeopardized.”
The variant was first detected in the UK last autumn and has since been identified in California, Colorado, Florida and 37 states. While scientists estimate that the variant is between 40 and 70 percent more contagious than the previous one, they say it does not look more lethal and is unlikely to change the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines.
‘N’ Game changer ‘
However, the advent of the variant comes at a dangerous time for the region, state and nation.
The metropolitan area is already dealing with record-breaking infections and hospitalizations that show no signs of slowing down, hospital capacity nationwide is declining, and the rollout of vaccines to many of the general public is still months away. In the metropolitan area, ICU capacity remained the lowest in the state on Tuesday with 16 percent. Officials at the hospital in the area said they had started using non-clinical staff and agencies to increase their bed capacity.
Government Andrew M. Cuomo said Tuesday that the arrival of the variant in New York poses a new, serious danger and could be a “game changer.”
“The numbers are alarming as the transmission of the virus increases,” he said. “It’s something we need to look at and pay close attention to.”
The new variant disrupts the dynamics between vaccinations against infection rates that Cuomo has compared to a “foot race” and “the light at the end of the tunnel”, which means it could lead to extra deaths as New Yorkers await their turn around the receive vaccinations that will put an end to this pandemic.
Eli Rosenberg, an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Albany, said a more contagious virus could mean governments have to increase their standard for vaccine vaccination. Experts said between 75 and 85 percent of the population should be vaccinated against coronavirus to achieve any meaningful level of herd immunity.
“There’s this classic mathematical connection between transmissibility and herd immunity,” Rosenberg said. “And if something spreads more easily, you need to have a higher coverage for herd immunity … if it becomes the (dominant) strain, then the rod is moved to the vaccine coverage.”
Cuomo on Tuesday encouraged anyone who believes they have been exposed to the variant during a visit to the Saratoga Springs jewelry store, located at 404 Broadway, between Dec. 18 and Dec. 24 to plan a test. The state has set up a free test site just for patrons of the store in Saratoga Spa State Park, located at 99 E. West Road in Saratoga Springs.
Visitors can register here. The website will be open daily until Friday from 10:00 to 18:00.
“Someone who has been exposed, anyone who has been exposed to anyone who has been exposed, please contact us,” Cuomo said, working directly with people in the capital. ‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s a virus. It travels, but we need to know. Restriction is of utmost importance here. ”
Not just a problem with the metropolitan area
While the new variant was first identified in Saratoga Springs, the problem is unlikely to be limited to the Saratoga or even the wider metropolitan area, Rosenberg said.
“All this with the Saratoga case, with the British case – you have to remember that they are all based on small monsters,” he said. “So, for everyone we track down, there are many that we are not.”
The detection of specific coronavirus strains is an engaging and time-consuming process that involves the sequencing of an entire genome. The U.S. has been criticized for not sequencing enough samples in the coronavirus pandemic, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week that it hopes to more than double the number of samples consecutive each week, from about 3,000 to 6,500.
In New York, the state’s Wadsworth Laboratory and private laboratories have been monitoring nearly 5,000 random coronavirus samples since March, said Jonah Bruno, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health. The pace of sequencing increased in December as the portability of the British variant made headlines.
Of the more than 1,600 monsters Wadsworth has followed up on so far, 870 have taken place since Dec. 23, Bruno said.
‘As part of an extensive effort to determine the extent to which the UK variant occurs in New York State, hospitals and clinical laboratories from across the state submit COVID-19 samples to the Wadsworth Center, and Wadsworth has increased the number dramatically. of samples it is order, ‘he said.
However, the increase is not nearly dramatic enough for the number of positive COVID-19 tests popping up in New York every day. According to the COVID-19 tracker of the state, the number for 21 of the past thirty days has crossed for 21 of the past 30 days.
“We test a fraction of what turns up positively in New York every day,” Rosenberg said, referring to the sequence.
“So it’s unlikely to be limited to Saratoga or the Capital or what you have,” he added.
State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker said on Tuesday that the state’s Wadsworth Lab could detect the British variant within about 44 hours, which is much faster than other laboratories.
“I will note that we are doing this much faster, much more efficiently than the federal government,” he said. “The CDC is taking much longer than that, and other countries have reported that it will take a few weeks to get the federal government’s results back. see if the other individuals had the British tribe or the British tribe. “
Edward McKinley and Lauren Stanforth contributed to this report.