At least 52 cases of a coronavirus variant first identified in the UK were identified in the United States on Wednesday, according to the CDC.
It includes 26 cases in California, 22 cases in Florida, two cases in Colorado and one case in Georgia and New York.
CDC says it does not represent the total number of cases circulating in the US, but rather cases found by analyzing positive samples. The agency warns that its numbers, which are expected to update on Tuesdays and Thursdays, may not immediately match those of state and local health departments.
Although the variant appears to spread more easily than Covid-19, there is no evidence, according to the CDC, that it is more lethal or causes serious illness.
Experts suspect that there may be many more cases in the US and have criticized the country for not doing more genetic sequencing of virus samples to record mutations. A CDC official told CNN on Sunday that the agency plans to more than double the number of samples it follows in the next two weeks – with a target of 6,500 per week.
The earliest known American sample containing the current version of the variant was taken on December 19 in Florida, according to the genomic database GISAID. However, collection dates are not available for all samples.