Two cases of the British variant of the coronavirus have been identified in Suffolk County, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced yesterday.
The Suffolk cases were among four new cases identified by the state’s laboratory. The other two were identified in Saratoga County and Warren County. New York’s first case of the British tribe was identified in Saratoga County earlier this month.
These newly identified cases bring the total number of known cases of the British variant in New York to 22. Two of the known cases have been previously identified in Nassau County.
The British strain of the virus is a more contagious variant of the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Known as B.1.1.7, the variant originated last month, and the rapid portability of the variant has upset health officials in the UK and prompted Prime Minister Boris Johnson to apply new national closures. The growing virus has plagued UK hospitals ever since
U.S. public health officials have monitored the spread of the British variant of the coronavirus, which they say is 50% more contagious.
The CDC said last week that the UK variant could be expected to become the predominant strain of the virus in the US sometime in March.
“At the moment, we are in a footprint between how fast we spread the vaccine and how fast the infection spreads,” Cuomo said at a news conference yesterday afternoon.
“The good news is: the infection rate is a function of people’s behavior and is currently declining, which means New Yorkers are acting responsibly,” he said.
“The bad news – not only is the federal vaccine provision not keeping pace with our ability to administer it, but we are still seeing new cases of the British strain, which is much more transmissible,” Cuomo said.
The British variant apparently does not cause more serious diseases than the virus that has spread around the world since it was first detected in China in December 2019. It has since infected nearly 97 million people worldwide and caused more than 2 million deaths, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University. In the US, which leads the world in both infections and deaths, the virus has infected 24,135,690 people and killed 400,306 people, according to the CDC.
The state’s Wadsworth Lab is constantly testing for other COVID-19 virus strains, and so far no variant other than the British strain has been found in New York, Cuomo said on Monday.
Overall, test positivity declined to 6.8% on Monday. The virus is spreading more slowly in New York, but the number of new cases per 100,000 inhabitants – 76.5 – is still at a dangerous level.
Currently, only South Carolina (97 per 100,000), Arizona (92.8 per 100,000) and California (92.3 per 100,000) have more serious outbreaks than New York. Nationally, the number of new cases is 60 per 100,000.
In Suffolk, new cases are 110.5 per 100,000. In Nassau, new cases are 99.7 per 100,000.
There were 1,244 new cases reported in Suffolk on Monday and 1,096 reported in Nassau. The Long Island region tested 7.6% on Monday. It was 7.9% in Suffolk.
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