The lack of Covid testing capability in the United States could mean that the new, highly transmissible coronavirus strain that first emerged in the United Kingdom is already working through communities across the US
This is according to dr. Nahid Bhadelia, the medical director of the Special Pathogens Unit at Boston Medical Center.
“To find the strain, we need to take a percentage of the samples that are diagnosed and do deep genetic analyzes, and (in) the US, our capacity was not yet spectacular, ‘the doctor told infectious diseases ‘The News with Shepard Smith’ on Monday. “If the tension is here, we can only miss it because the holes in our net are too wide.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the new variant has not been detected in the US
However, the agency said viruses were only detected from about 51,000 of the 17 million infections in the country. The UK recorded the most rows with 125.00. Infections in the UK reached their second highest day total on Christmas Eve, with the country confirming 39,036 new Covid-19 cases that day.
As of Monday, the US will require all travelers flying from the UK to provide evidence of a negative Covid-19 test amid growing concerns about the new variant of the virus.
Dr Bhadelia, who is also a medical associate of NBC News, explained that the measures did not go far enough.
“You can still have people who were negative when they tested, and later got on the plane, and later turned out to be positive. That’s why I think it should be linked to some kind of quarantine,” she said.
Japan took stricter measures and stopped all arrivals abroad. More than a dozen countries have reported cases of the rapidly spreading mutation, including Canada, France, South Africa, Australia, Japan and South Korea.
Health experts in the UK and US have noted that although the new variant appears to be more transmissible, there is still no evidence that it is more deadly. Dr Bhadelia warned that the findings should not make people complacent when it comes to the new tribe.
“The tricky thing is that, although we do not think it increases mortality, the fact that it can be transmitted more easily is also more worrying, because the more people who become infected, the more people end up in hospitals, and possibly die, ‘she added.