(Newser)
– The British variant of the coronavirus may not be the only new strain with which we should be concerned. The White House coronavirus task force told states that the United States may have its own new strain that is 50% more transmissible. This would partly explain the current increase in cases, the task force said; the rate of new infections is almost double what it was in the spring and last summer, reports CNBC. “This acceleration suggests that there may be a US variant that has evolved here, in addition to the UK variant that is already spreading in our communities,” said the report. “Aggressive mitigation should be used to match a more aggressive virus.”
The CDC reported at least 52 occurrences of the United Kingdom variant in the USA. “I would be surprised if it doesn’t grow very quickly,” said the director of the National Institutes of Health, according to the Washington Post. A CDC official said, “We are definitely taking this seriously and assuming, for the time being, that this variant is more transmissible.” Health experts still expect existing vaccines to work against all newly discovered variants. But the CDC’s report to the states warned that “without a uniform implementation of effective facial masking (two or three layers and well-adjusted) and strict social distance, epidemics can quickly worsen as these variants spread and become prevalent” . (Read more coronavirus stories.)