© Travis Long / Zuma Press
A variant of the highly transmissible coronavirus that was first identified in the UK is spreading rapidly in the United States and is likely to become the dominant strain that circulates internally in March, with no measures to slow it down, federal health officials said.
Health officials on Friday called for increased measures, such as wearing masks and social detachment, to stem the spread of the most contagious strain. Otherwise, it will intensify the pressure on hospitals that are struggling to deal with emerging cases.
A year after a new coronavirus was detected in Wuhan, China, the pandemic it spawned reached a dangerous point. Vaccines are now available to stop it, but the release in the United States has been slow and new variants of the virus, spreading faster, are threatening disease outbreaks.
Variant B.1.1.7 has infected at least 76 people in 12 states as of January 13 and threatens to worsen the pandemic in the U.S. in the coming months as the number of daily cases and hospitalizations is already at record levels, the US Centers for Control and Disease Prevention said in a report that models the potential impact of the variant.
“We expect these numbers to increase in the coming weeks,” said Jay Butler, the CDC’s deputy director for infectious diseases, in an interview.
The variant may fuel exponential growth in new cases, becoming the dominant strain in late March if more public health measures are not put in place to stop it, said Michael Johansson, biologist and modeler for the Covid-19 response. of the CDC.
Although the new variant does not appear to cause more serious illnesses, it is more contagious than the dominant coronavirus strain, said the CDC.
This means that it can lead to more hospitalizations and deaths by infecting more people in general, the agency said, exacerbating pressures on health systems that are already at or close to capacity.
The United States has a short time to step up measures such as social detachment and wearing masks to prevent B.1.1.7 from spreading widely, said the CDC. These precautions would also buy time for vaccination campaigns to start affecting transmission rates, the agency said.
This means that people should wear masks, staying at least 6 feet away from others, avoiding crowds, washing their hands and being vaccinated, said the CDC.
The new variant is believed to be 50% more transmissible than the strain currently dominant in the United States, but agency experts believe that existing prevention strategies work.
“If you are not wearing a mask or are getting a little relaxed because you are tired of wearing the mask, I really encourage you to wear the mask,” said Dr. Butler.
He asked for the same resistance to avoid meeting with people outside his own home: “This is not the time to give up at all.”
“It doesn’t mean that companies need to be closed or things like that, but it does mean that we have to take steps to be able to protect ourselves and limit our contacts with other people,” said Butler.
The CDC also warned health systems to prepare for an even greater increase and said that people who do not show symptoms of Covid-19, but are at risk of infection, should be tested.
Covid-19 vaccines are expected to work against the new variant, according to Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc., which make both vaccines authorized for use in the United States. While researchers are studying the subject, however, the spread of the new variant means that about 80% of the population would need to be vaccinated to prevent Covid-19, CDC scientists said. This is about 10 percentage points higher than some federal officials originally anticipated.
The agency is monitoring the appearance of other new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in the United States, Butler said. The agency recently issued an order requiring all international air passengers to the US to test negative for Covid-19 three days before their flights.
The CDC and other health organizations are increasing genomic surveillance to better detect cases of the new variant. The agency established a new surveillance program for the SARS-CoV-2 strain in November and is working with other health agencies to increase surveillance.
The labs are sequencing about 6,000 positive SARS-CoV-2 samples per week in the U.S. now, said Gregory Armstrong, director of the CDC’s advanced molecular detection program. More than 200,000 people test positive every day in the U.S.
“We think it is more than we need to pick up new and emerging variants, but we have the ability to increase that,” said Armstrong.
Write to Betsy McKay at [email protected]
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