SALT LAKE CITY – A new, more transmissible variant of COVID-19 that originated in the UK has been detected in Utah, state health officials announced Friday.
The variant, also known as B.1.1.7, was detected in a Salt Lake County man who tested positive last month and was between 25 and 44 years old, according to a statement from the Utah Department of Health. . The man had no known history of travel outside of Utah and showed only mild symptoms, according to the statement.
The British variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is thought to spread more quickly and easily than other mutations, but there is no evidence that it is more lethal, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The variant was first detected in the United States in Colorado.
“This is a tough time to have a more contagious strain, since it’s winter, people are more inside,” said Utah Department of Health state epidemiologist Angela Dunn. “It’s just past the holiday season and people are frankly tired of all the public health recommendations we’re making. So in combination with a few vaccines to do that, it’s worrisome.”
Dr. Kelly Oakeson, chief scientist of bioinformatics and next-generation sequencing at the Utah Public Health Laboratory, explained that the case was discovered through a genetic profile test of a positive case. He said there are 17 different mutations in the UK variant, which they found during the test that led to the confirmation.
Both he and Dunn said they believed the variant had been in Utah for some time and that there would probably be more cases.
“I think it’s more widespread,” Oakeson said. “We’re not sequencing all the positive samples, so we’re only sequencing about 10%, in a few months a little less. So if we detect it quickly since we’ve been looking for it, it tells us it’s probably more widespread than this single individual.” .
Salt Lake County health officials conducted a routine investigation of the case after the Utah case was detected, including contact tracking, for the varying case.
The discovery in Utah was announced almost the same time the CDC released a research paper recognizing that the new variant was detected in 10 states between December 29, 2020 and Tuesday. The researchers said current models project that the strain will become the dominant strain in the U.S. in March.
Although it is not known to be more lethal, researchers warned that it could create more problems if it led to an increase in COVID-19 transmission. COVID-19 vaccines are also currently approved to be effective against the British variant of the virus; however, the new variant poses a problem for vaccination efforts if it spreads faster than people can be vaccinated.
They advised people to continue taking steps to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.
“Increased transmission of SARS-CoV-2 may threaten scarce health resources, require stricter and more rigorous implementation of public health strategies, and increase the percentage of population immunity needed to control the pandemic. “, the researchers wrote in the paper.
Dunn echoed those concerns Friday afternoon. He noted that herd immunity is unlikely to be achieved through vaccinations until summer or fall, and that a positive case is believed to only provide about 90 days of immunity. In addition, the new variant could lead to an increase in cases in a short time, which could lead to continued or worsening tension in hospitals across the state, as the CDC newspaper warned.
“I think this gives another twist to the way we are responding to this pandemic, knowing that our hospital ICUs are already exceeding capacity and we are at the beginning of a potential increase in cases due to this new variant,” he said. .
The UK responded to the new tension with new strikes across the country. Utah has no recommendations or firm plans related to the new variant, Dunn added.
The current total cases and positivity rate of COVID-19 in Utah remain high, but are slowly declining again, but another rise may come with the higher education and K-12 classes returning this month and a more contagious variant documented in the state. As experts noted on Friday, the variant spread more quickly among younger people in the UK because these groups were more likely to be where the spread occurs.
Dunn is optimistic that testing protocols such as overvoltage testing on college campuses to begin the semester could pick up new cases before it generates widespread growth in new cases. That said, he is also aware that the time when the new strain arrives in Utah is not ideal.
“It’s more transmissible, it’s more contagious than the other variants of COVID, and so now more than ever we need to practice good public health practice wearing a face mask, staying home when we’re sick, avoiding big meetings and physically . distancing as much as we can, “he said. “We really need to be very careful to move forward until we vaccinate more people so we don’t overflow our health systems.”
Jacob Klopfenstein
Carter Williams