With the worldwide death toll from the coronavirus pandemic reaching 2 million on Friday, a new variant of the virus that has begun to spread in the United States has worried health experts. The variant, designated B.1.1.7, was first identified in the United Kingdom, and researchers estimate it to be about 50% more transmissible than the most common coronavirus strain. On Friday, the CDC predicted that this variant could become the dominant strain in the United States in March.
Yahoo News Medical Contributor, Dr. Kavita Patel, explains what we can do individually and as a country to minimize the impact of this new variant.
Video transcription
KAVITA PATEL: So, what is the state of affairs with the current variants under investigation or variants of concern? The reason why these mutations – or series of mutations in particular – are a concern is really because of the greater transmissibility, as well as the potential to make existing vaccines less effective. So if you look at what we know, we know that the UK variant of concern is in the United States. We do not know the extent of the distance between the United States, but it is a good reason to believe that it is probably widespread in the United States – it is probably not responsible for the peaks we see in this post-holiday phase, but they could become important.
They are more transmissible, but not necessarily more virulent. What this means is that they do not result in a more serious form of infection or more serious types of illness that lead to death. But something that is more transferable with the UK variant, there is a 50% increase in transferability. And when you have a lot more people infected, some of those people will go to the hospital. Some of these people may die. So while the mutated virus is not in itself more deadly, the fact that it can infect more people more efficiently makes it worrying.
I, as an individual, what can I do to protect myself? Number one, keep reinforcing the same precautions that we talked about a year ago – wear a mask, stay home whenever possible or keep your distance and wash your hands. But I will reinforce something that is in one of those precautions, wearing a mask.
You really need to consider the effectiveness of your mask. Now we know that the quality of a mask is important and how you use it. For example, if you have a very thin piece of cloth that is just covering your mouth, that is not enough protection.
If possible, it would be extremely important to use a high level surgical mask or some of the most commercially available KN95 or N95 masks, if available in your area. But the better the mask, the better the protection. This question arose, and I will even recommend that if people don’t have a high quality mask, a double mask, if it is comfortable, used correctly is not a bad idea.
So, in addition to what we can do as individuals, what can we do in general? For example, we have already seen a requirement for the United States. Anyone traveling to the United States from a destination outside the USA must have a negative test. I want to warn you, however, that a negative test does not mean that you are necessarily negative. There is a window of time in which you can test negative and still be a carrier or be infected with the virus. So it’s comforting, but it won’t be enough.
The second thing to keep in mind is that we have effective vaccines, which we believe are effective against all of these mutations due to the way vaccines work. Therefore, we believe that they are effective. But the key here, in the United States, is to make sure that we put these vaccines in as many arms as possible so that we have most of the country vaccinated before any viruses, including the existing coronaviruses that are causing COVID, can spread like a virus. fire.
The third thing to remember is that, in hospitals and clinics, we actually have treatments that have been useful both to decrease mortality, if people die from this disease, and to decrease the length of stay in the hospital. They are not perfect and have been studied and continue to be studied extensively. But now we have outpatient treatments that I can offer patients in a clinic or near a hospital, as well as hospital treatment. And we are learning all the time from other colleagues around the world who also conduct tests for treatments.
So these three things – number one, these travel precautions or testing requirements, number two, really thinking about the approach to vaccinating as many people as possible, and then number three, really using it, when people are sick, treatments currently available. That’s how we hope to see 2021 as a year of transition and a bit of a return to normal, hopefully, by the end of the year.