Public health experts warn that the new mutant British variant of the new coronavirus in the US will make efforts to curb the spread and vaccinate people is a ‘formidable challenge’.
The new strain, known as SARS-CoV-2 VUI 202012/01, is feared to be 70 percent more transmissible and to spread more easily among children.
So far, the ‘super-COVID’ variant has only been detected in four states: California, Colorado, Florida and New York.
But scientists tell Bloomberg that there are likely to be ‘hundreds’ of infections across the country and that a stronger effort should be made to get people immunized before more people become infected or die with the new strain.
This comes when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday night announced a national exclusion for England which is likely to last until mid-February as the virus continues to devastate the country.
“It’s a race, and this variant has made the whole challenge more formidable,” Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California, told Bloomberg.
“Whatever we saw in 2020 in terms of a challenging virus, it will be taken to a new level.”
According to researchers, there is now a race to immunize as many Americans as possible after a new strain of the coronavirus was detected in the US. Pictured: Nurse Sandra Lindsay receives the second dose of a Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York. City, January 2021
This map shows how the coronavirus variants were detected while spreading all over the world. The strain that originated in the UK, known as SARS-CoV-2 VUI 202012/01, is feared to be 70% more contagious and to spread more easily among children.
Although the deadliest strain was discovered in the US just as the vaccination began, its spread is slow.
According to the CDC, 15.4 million doses were distributed as of Monday morning and a little over 4.5 million people received their first dose.
This figure is very shy of the Trump administration’s plan to vaccinate 20 million people by the end of 2020.
It also comes as cases in the U.S. increase by more than 20 million confirmed cases – with a running average of more than 200,000 a day – and more than 351,000 deaths.
On Sunday, hospitalizations peaked at 125,544, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
British health officials say the virus originated somewhere in September and spread unnoticed in the country until mid-November, with 17 mutations. In the photo: 3D version of the new coronavirus
The new British variant was first discovered after the country experienced an increase in cases in early December.
This led to Prime Minister Boris Johnson closing parts of the country and other countries to impose a travel ban.
It is currently unclear when, or how, the virus originated, but researchers believe it is in circulation. unnoticed from September to mid-November.
Bloomberg reports that the new variant is at least responsible for this 62 per cent of all COVID-19 cases in London, an increase of 28 per cent in early November.
And one study found that by mid-January it would be responsible for 90 per cent of all new infections in London and the East and South of England.
The variant has a set of 17 mutations – a very high number – the most important of which is a change in the ear protein of the virus that it uses to bind to human receptors.
Researchers believe these mutations make it easier for the vein protein to enter and infect human cells, making them more transmissible.
Dr Nick Loman, a professor of microbial genomics at the University of Birmingham, said during a briefing on December 15 that there was no data to suggest the virus came from abroad, according to The BMJ.
Scientists suspect they are probably ‘hundreds’ of infections across the country.
“If I had to guess, I would say it’s probably hundreds of people now,” Dr. Michael Worobey, head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, told CNN.
“It is quite possible that it arrived in several places several times.”
According to the CDC, an investigation is currently underway into how easily the new variant can be transmitted and whether the vaccines currently approved will protect people against it.
The CDC monitoring system is currently being scaled up to process 750 samples per week nationwide and the agency is working with laboratories to sequence or genetically map 1,750 samples of the virus weekly.
On December 29, CDC of these laboratories has the obligation to track 1,750 samples per week, and expects to be able to increase this number.
Dr Gregory Armstrong, director of the Office of Advanced Molecular Detection at the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, said the CDC hopes to track approximately 6,000 samples per week.
“It is important that we monitor the virus and that we can detect these trends that have implications for public health and clinical medicine,” he told CNN.
However, there is currently no evidence that the Pfizer Inc or the Moderna Inc shot can protect against the new voltage.
“There is good news here,” Topol told Bloomberg.
‘It will not affect the effectiveness of the vaccine. That is why there is this race. If we move forward and get everyone vaccinated, if we do it quickly, we will have this virus under control. ‘