Massachusetts reported more cases of the new variant P.1 COVID-19 – which has been linked to increased transmissibility and possible reinfection – than anywhere else in the U.S., and local researchers said the increase is worrying.
Most of these cases, they added, are linked to a crowded on Cape Cod.
Of the 58 known positive cases of the P.1 variant in Mass., According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 50 have been identified in Barnstable County.
Broad Institute data from MIT and Harvard revealed that in less than a month since The state reported his first known case variant P.1, which was first detected in travelers from Brazil, it spread faster than any other variant of COVID-19 in the Community.
The CDC also reports that Mass. It now shows 712 cases of the highly contagious B.1.1.7. variant first detected in the UK, which authorities have noted as becoming the dominant strain in much of the country.
Cape Cod employees last week said they are facing a third increase and that the community needs emergency vaccination sites after 20 of the first P.1 cases have emerged. Almost half of the 15 cities in Barnstable County are now considered by the state to be high risk for the virus.
Broad Institute research suggests that 43 of the cases in the Cabo cluster are linked to an introduction from Brazil, and that P.1 may have been introduced in Connecticut through Massachusetts, although researchers have not yet identified an epidemiological link.
William Hanage, associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health TH Chan, said The Boston Globe Saturday that many of the variant cases in Cabo were discovered when only a few people had been vaccinated.
The most recent coronavirus weekly report for Mass. It showed that more residents of Barnstable County received their first injections than any other region in the state, but Hanage said it was still far from sufficient.
“To completely exclude this virus, we need to vaccinate many more people than we already have,” he told the Globe. “High vaccination rates [right now] they are not enough to be protective and, if we allow more transmission, we will have more cases ”.
Although the cases have not continued to increase across the state, the researchers said it is likely to be the variant “it is already or will be circulating in the communities and continuous surveillance will be essential to understand the trajectory and the impact ”of that.
O The CDC found that P.1 it tends to spread more quickly and easily than the original COVID-19 strain, although scientists have not yet learned whether it is more deadly or how likely it is to reinfect those who have had the coronavirus and recovered.
Brazil recorded on Saturday about 2,000 deaths related to the P.1 variant, according to Dice compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The country also recorded the highest number of deaths in a day so far on Wednesday, with 3,869 people dying from the virus. Officials warned that the increase in Brazil may have implications globally, and many South American nations are already seeing their own number of cases increase.
P.1 was first detected in the USA in January 2021, and scientists are still unsure of how widely the variant has spread, or how it is affected by existing vaccines. However, a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine find something the coronavirus vaccine Pfizer-BioNTech appears to remain highly effective.
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