Public health experts are warning that the new British mutant variant of the new coronavirus in the United States will make efforts to stem the spread, as well as to vaccinate people, a ‘formidable challenge’.
It is feared that the new strain, known as SARS-CoV-2 VUI 202012/01, will be 70% more transmissible and spread more easily among children.
So far, the ‘super-COVID’ variant has only been detected in four states: California, Colorado, Florida and New York.
But scientists tell Bloomberg that there are probably “hundreds” of infections across the country and that a stronger effort is needed to immunize people before more people become infected – or die – from the new strain.
This is at a time when the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, announces a national blockade for England on Monday night, which is likely to last until mid-February, while the virus continues to devastate the country.
“It’s a race, and that variant made the whole challenge more formidable,” Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California, told Bloomberg.
“Everything we saw in 2020 in terms of a challenging virus, will be taken to a new level.”
The researchers say there is now a race to immunize as many Americans as possible after a new strain of coronavirus has been detected in the United States. Photo: Nurse Sandra Lindsay receives a second dose of a Pfizer coronavirus vaccine at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York City, January 2021
This map shows how the coronavirus variants were tracked as they spread across the world. The strain originating in the United Kingdom, known as SARS-CoV-2 VUI 202012/01, fears to be 70% more contagious and to spread more easily among children
Although the deadliest strain was discovered in the United States as soon as the vaccine launch began, distribution has been slow.
According to the CDC, as of Monday morning, 15.4 million doses had been distributed and just over 4.5 million people had received their first dose.
This figure is very timid in relation to the Trump administration’s plan to vaccinate 20 million people by the end of 2020.
It also occurs with the increase in cases in the USA, with more than 20 million confirmed cases – with a moving average of more than 200,000 per day – and more than 351,000 deaths.
On Sunday, hospitalizations reached a record 125,544, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
UK health officials say the virus originated sometime in September and circulated around the country undetected until mid-November and has 17 mutations. In the photo: 3D rendering of the new coronavirus
The new UK variant was discovered after the country experienced an increase in the number of cases in early December.
This prompted Prime Minister Boris Johnson to close parts of the country and other countries to impose travel bans.
It is currently unclear when or how the virus originated, but researchers believe it is circulating. not detected from September to mid-November.
Bloomberg reports that the new variant is responsible for at least 62 percent of all COVID-19 cases in London, an increase of 28 percent in early November.
And one study found that it may be responsible for 90 percent of all new infections in London and in eastern and southern England in mid-January.
The variant has a set of 17 mutations – a very high number – the most significant of which is a change in the virus’s spike protein that it uses to bind to human receptors.
The researchers believe that these mutations make it easier for the spike protein to enter and infect human cells, which is why it is more transmissible.
Dr. Nick Loman, a professor of microbial genomics at the University of Birmingham, said at a news conference on Dec. 15 that there is no data to suggest that the virus came from abroad, according to the BMJ.
Scientists suspect there are probably ‘hundreds’ of infections across the country.
“If I had to guess, I would say it’s probably in hundreds of people now,” Dr. Michael Worobey, head of the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, told CNN.
“It is very possible that he arrived several times in several places.”
The CDC says it is studying how easily the new variant can be transmitted and whether the currently authorized vaccines will protect people against them.
Currently, the CDC’s surveillance system is being scaled to process 750 samples nationally per week and the agency is partnering with laboratories to sequence, or genetically map – 1,750 samples of the virus weekly.
Since December 29, the CDC has committed these laboratories to sequence 1,750 samples per week and expects to be able to increase that number.
Dr. Gregory Armstrong, director of the Office of Advanced Molecular Detection at the CDC’s National Center for Zoonotic and Emerging Infectious Diseases, said the CDC expects to sequence about 6,000 samples per week.
“It is important to monitor the virus and be able to detect these trends that have implications for public health and clinical medicine,” he told CNN.
However, there is currently no evidence that Pfizer Inc or Moderna Inc is unable to protect against the new strain.
“There is good news here,” Topol told Bloomberg.
‘It will not affect the effectiveness of the vaccine. That’s why there is this race. If we advance this and vaccinate everyone, if we do it quickly, we will have the virus under control. ‘