The variant is a mutation of the coronavirus. It originated in the United Kingdom and has since been detected in numerous countries around the world, including the United States and Canada. Scientists say there is nothing new about the mutation of a virus. Viruses constantly mutate naturally as they repeat and circulate in their hosts. In the case of the British variant, the result appears to be a virus that is more transmissible, but which no longer causes serious diseases.
How many cases were there in Massachusetts?
So far, there has been officially one case. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health announced Sunday that the first case has been detected in the state. The department said the person who contracted the variant was a Boston woman in her twenties who traveled to the UK and became ill the day after she returned. The Boston Public Health Commission issued a statement saying the woman ‘returned to Boston’ on January 3, 2021 and had a short (approximately 2 hours) time at Logan International Airport before traveling to another state. ‘
“Given the increased portability of this variant and the number of states and other states that have found infected cases, the Department expected the variant to eventually arrive in Massachusetts,” the DPH said. Governor Charlie Baker said two weeks ago there is no reason not to believe the variant is already in the state.
Why should I worry about one thing?
Experts and officials believe that this could very well be the beginning of a tsunami of affairs. “The most important issue is that the variant seems more transmissible, and that it has quickly become the dominant tribe in Britain,” he said in an email.
The new variant is “definitely more contagious, and spreads more easily from one person to another than the previous version of the virus. What this means is because the new variant spreads faster through the population than the old variant, it soon becomes the predominant “It’s going to take the form of the virus in the population. It’s going to get rid of the other one,” said Dr. Philip Landrigan, who runs Boston College’s Global Public Health and Community Goods program, on Tuesday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Friday about the possibility of another increase in cases and deaths due to the variant. The agency said the modeling suggests it is possible that the variant will become the predominant source of all infections in the United States by March.
“I want to emphasize that we are very concerned that this tension is more transferable and could accelerate the outbreaks in the US in the coming weeks,” said Dr. Jay Butler, deputy director for infectious diseases at the CDC, said. “We are sounding the alarm and calling on people to realize that the pandemic is not over yet and it is by no means time to throw in the towel.”
What is the problem with increased portability?
According to experts, the new variant no longer causes serious diseases, which is welcome news. But the problem is that if the disease spreads to a much larger number of people, a larger number of people in the hospital will go up and die.
“We should not be alarmed and say, ‘Maybe it’s more communicable, but it’s not a more serious disease. ‘The more people become quantitatively infected, the more people will be admitted to hospital. “Quantitatively, the more people are admitted to hospital, the more people are going to get seriously ill and die,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Tuesday.
“The more people you become infected, the more serious you will be,” Fauci, who served as chief medical adviser to the Biden administration, said in an interview with Harvard Business Review, which streamed live as part of the HBR Now- series.
What can we do about it?
Experts and officials say that the variant can be stopped by the same precautions that people are already taking. “The same things we are doing now to prevent covid19 should apply to this variant – removal, avoidance of crowds, masks in public spaces,” Sax said.
“Once it’s here, it’s going to spread,” Landrigan said. “Everyone must be vigilant. Everyone needs to double down on what they do. … People will have to be even more conscientious in doing those things. ‘
Landrigan said government officials should also closely monitor whether pubs, restaurants and public gatherings add to the spread of the virus.
“Concerns that the new variant could further aggravate the pandemic in the coming weeks should lead everyone to double the prevention. This includes sustained social removal, wearing a mask, avoiding crowds and getting ready for the vaccine when it’s your turn to do so, “said Dr. Howard Koh, a professor at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and a former top-notch Obama administration health official, said in an email.
Will vaccines stop the virus?
Vaccinations are another important way to stop the spread of the virus, but so far the rollout in Massachusetts has been slow.
It seems that the vaccines are currently protecting against the variant, so it is ‘important that we increase the supply and distribution as quickly as possible,’ Sax said.
Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told the Globe last week: “There is every reason to believe [the variant] is going to cause a huge increase in business. ”
“If we can vaccinate people in a serious way,” Jha said, “it will be very blunt.”
No one in public health looks at the data and says, “Oh, thank God,” Jha told the Globe. ‘We look at the next four to six weeks and think,’ Please take the vaccine in humans. ‘We’re been in such a hard six to eight weeks. ‘
Could there be more problems due to other mutations?
Scientists say that the British variant may not be the only problem variant that emerges. Other mutations are now appearing rapidly, including two notable variants that have already been detected in South Africa and Brazil. The longer it takes to vaccinate people, the greater the chance that a variant can emerge that can evade current tests, treatments and vaccines, reports The Associated Press.
“We have to do everything we can now … to get transfer as low as possible,” said Dr. Michael Mina, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, told the wire service. “The best way to prevent mutant strains from popping up is to delay transmission.”
“We are in a race against time” because the virus ‘could stumble upon a mutation’ that makes it more dangerous, says Dr. Pardis Sabeti, an evolutionary biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
Materials from Globe Wire Services and previous Globe stories were used in this report.
Martin Finucane can be reached at [email protected].