A 23-year-old man from Florida is now out of isolation after being the first person in the state to test positive for a new and more contagious strain of COVID-19, health officials said on Saturday.
The presence of the new strain in Martin County, on the Florida Treasury Coast, was first discovered on Thursday through CDC random sampling of COVID-19 tests.
The CDC is now working with the Florida Department of Health to examine more cases in the area and see how far the new strain has spread.
It is unclear when the individual tested positive, but Martin County health worker Carol Ann Vitani described the patient on Saturday as “very cooperative”, following the COVID-19 protocols. The person was asymptomatic and had not traveled out of the state recently.
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Cases of the new strain, originally from the United Kingdom, have also been found in Colorado and California.
It is common for viruses to change as they spread, but some health experts are concerned that current vaccines will not be effective if COVID-19 mutates too much.
For now, this is not the case.
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“Right now, experts predict little or no impact on the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine,” the state health department said.
The state is currently implementing the coronavirus vaccine, giving priority to its vulnerable elderly population and health professionals with direct contact with patients.
Florida vaccinated 243,107 residents, but the head of the state’s Emergency Management Division said on Wednesday that the state is not distributing the vaccine quickly enough.
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“I know people are frustrated and I know this is the light at the end of the tunnel and they want to get there as quickly as possible,” Jared Moskowitz, who is overseeing the launch of the COVID-19 vaccine in Florida, told the Orlando Sentinela newspaper . “I know that the configured systems are not satisfying the moment.”
Florida recorded 1,354,833 confirmed cases and 21,890 deaths from the disease.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.