MASSACHUSETTS – Massachusetts has more reported cases of the new P.1 variant of COVID-19 than any other state in the country, and researchers said at the weekend most of these cases come from a cluster on Cape Cod.
A report by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard found 54 such cases in Massachusetts, and said that 43 of them come from the Cape cluster. The variant, which originated in Brazil, spreads faster, but researchers still do not know whether it is more deadly or whether it can reinfect people who have already had the virus.
William Hanage, associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health TH Chan, told the Boston Globe that, although there have been no new cases since the report was published, he expects more cases to be detected in the next few days. The report stems from data collected when fewer Massachusetts residents had received coronavirus vaccines.
Detection is of particular concern in Cape Cod, where the state considers about half of the communities to be “at high risk” for coronavirus transmission.