Experts are surprised, but cautiously optimistic, as new coronavirus cases in Florida continue to fall, despite the high prevalence of the UK’s ‘super COVID’ variant, suggesting that the United States may be able to escape a new outbreak fueled by viral mutations.
Florida now leads the country in confirmed cases of variant B117, which now accounts for about half of all new cases there, but has seen a 75 percent decline in total cases since early January.
It occurs despite dire warnings from UK officials that the B117 variant is up to 70 percent more contagious than previous tapes, and new research suggesting it is twice as deadly, raising fears that a variant wave could overtake the launch of vaccines.
“I think we are still looking at the data. If cases continue to decline in Florida, despite the circulating variants, the variant may not be as bad as was predicted, ‘Suzanne Judd, a PhD epidemiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, told DailyMail.com.
“That’s why we have to avoid speculating about the variants until we have the data,” she added.
“If cases continue to decline in Florida, despite the circulating variants, the variant may not be as bad as predicted,” epidemiologist Suzanne Judd (not pictured) told DailyMail.com. Above, the spring waves descend in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Thursday
Florida leads the country in confirmed variant cases, and variant B117 accounts for about half of all new cases there.
Even so, new cases in Florida continued to drop, dropping 75% from the beginning of January, despite doomsday warnings about the Super Bowl and relaxed business restrictions.
‘The good news from Florida is an encouraging sign for the rest of us. This does not mean that America is out of danger. But it suggests that we can emerge sooner than we thought, ‘wrote Andrew Romano for Yahoo News.
Florida leads the country with 690 confirmed cases of variant B117 – but surveillance tests estimate that the true number of variant cases is much higher.
Earlier this week, researchers estimated that B117 hit more than half of all new cases in Florida, after accounting for just 4% of cases a month ago.
But in the meantime, Florida’s case count has plummeted, despite apocalyptic predictions about the state’s loose business restrictions and large meetings for the Super Bowl LV in Tampa in early February.
The latest COVID increase in Florida peaked on January 8, with 84 new daily cases per 100,000 inhabitants, but cases dropped steadily and stood at 22 per 100,000 on Thursday.
Hospitalizations also fell by half in the same period, as did the Florida test positive rate, which now stands at 4.88%. Deaths have also declined dramatically.
The percentage of Florida surveillance tests with ‘S gene target failure’, the vast majority of which are cases of B117, are seen above more than 50% this week
Deaths fell dramatically in Florida, as hospitalizations and cases also declined
Meanwhile, 18.5 percent of floridians received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine, and 10 percent are now fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.
Judd, the epidemiologist, pointed out that Israel’s data showed that even partial vaccination appears to limit the spread of B117, suggesting that the vaccine’s launch arrived just in time.
“While the variant spread quickly in the UK, there was little data on how it would spread in the population with some level of vaccination,” she said.
Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist and researcher, called the Florida trend ‘a thermometer to know whether strain B.1.1.7 will reach the United States’.
– And there is no sign of an increase in cases. So far so good, ‘he tweeted this week.
Meanwhile, a worrying new researcher has emerged suggesting that the B117 variant, also known in the UK as the ‘Kent variant’, is more lethal as well as being more contagious.
College students went down to Florida for spring break with Fort Lauderdale beaches lined with unmasked revelers. Florida is the capital of the United States’ B117, but has declining cases
The most infectious variant, which spread across the UK at the end of last year before spreading across the world, is between 30% and 100% more deadly, a new study has found.
Epidemiologists at the Universities of Exeter and Bristol said the data suggest that the variant is associated with a significantly higher mortality rate among adults compared to strains that previously circulated.
Robert Challen of the University of Exeter, lead author of the study, said: ‘In the community, the death of Covid-19 is still a rare event, but the B117 variant increases the risk.
“Coupled with its ability to spread quickly, this makes B117 a threat that must be taken seriously.”
The researchers looked at mortality rates between people infected with the new variant and those infected with other strains.
They found that the variant first detected in Kent led to 227 deaths in a sample of 54,906 patients – compared with 141 among the same number of similar patients who had the previous strains.
Mutations of the virus raised concerns about whether the vaccines would be effective against the new strains, including the B117 strain.
But the research suggests that the Pfizer jab is as effective against the coronavirus variant as it was against the original pandemic strain, and other studies indicate that the Modern vaccine is also highly effective against the variant.