A new, more transmissible variant of the coronavirus first discovered in the UK has been detected in 10 U.S. states, said the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), warning that it may become the dominant variant in circulation in the United States. in March.
The variant, known as B.1.1.7, is believed to be twice as transmissible than the current version of the virus circulating in the United States, but so far there is no evidence that it causes more serious illness or is transmitted different.
Its rapid spread will increase the burden on health resources at a time when infections are increasing, further undermining depleted health resources and increasing the need for better adherence to mitigation strategies, such as social detachment and wearing masks, said the CDC on Friday in its weekly report on death and illness.
It also increases the percentage of the population that needs to be vaccinated to obtain protective herd immunity to control the pandemic, said the CDC.
The UK variant is currently in 10 states, but has been diagnosed in only 76 of the 23 million cases in the U.S. reported to date.
However, this version of the virus is likely to be more widespread in the country than is currently reported, according to CDC scientists.
Former FDA chief to conduct vaccine campaign
Separately on Friday, US President-elect Joe Biden chose David Kessler, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for a senior role in the new government’s efforts to increase the availability of COVID-19 vaccines. , said the Biden transition team.
The news came when Biden’s team predicted that the United States would mark about 500,000 deaths from the pandemic next month and how the president-elect should outline plans to increase vaccinations.
Kessler, a pediatrician and lawyer who headed the FDA under Presidents George HW Bush and Bill Clinton, will be the director of science for the government’s COVID-19 response.
The Biden government plans to reorganize the vaccine distribution effort that President Donald Trump’s administration called Operation Warp Speed, said spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
Biden called the Trump administration’s vaccine implementation “a terrible failure”.
Its own plan calls for Congress to spend $ 20 billion on vaccine distribution.
“We don’t fully fund COVID’s response,” Biden’s new chief of staff, Ron Klain, said in an interview with the Washington Post on Friday.
“We will see 500,000 deaths in this country next month,” said Klain.
Kessler was co-chairman of Biden’s advisory board on the pandemic. As head of the FDA, Kessler reduced the time needed to approve drugs to treat AIDS and started trying to regulate the tobacco industry.
His appointment comes at a critical point in the government’s efforts to accelerate the development and distribution of vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus in a country that has been particularly hard hit by the virus.
Biden promised to get 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine injected into Americans in his first 100 days in office.
This pace is more than double the current rate, but it would still leave much of the country without a swing by the end of April.
The Trump administration aimed to give vaccine doses to 20 million Americans by the end of 2020 – but only 11.1 million injections were administered as of Thursday, according to CDC data.
In an attempt to expand vaccination efforts, the Trump administration said on Tuesday that it was releasing millions of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine it had been containing for a second injection.
The move was a departure from an earlier strategy of storing sufficient doses to ensure that the required second doses of vaccines were available.
The Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, which were approved last month, require two doses.