Florida has become America’s new ‘super-COVID’ access point, leading the country in known cases.
At least 46 cases of the highly contagious variant identified in the UK have been found in the Sunshine State, more than double the initial figure of 22.
This happened just 20 days after the first case was identified on New Year’s Eve.
It is feared that the new strain, B 1.1.7., Will be up to 70 percent more transmissible and more easily spread among children.
It comes on the same day that a North Carolina lab identified 13 cases, which today has not reported any cases of the variant.
That means about 150 Americans have been infected with the strain since the first case was identified late last year.
Recently, University of Arizona researchers say it may have been in the United States six weeks a little earlier than expected.
The team says the variant could have been behind a cluster of cases in California dating back to Nov. 6 and another that occurred in Florida on November 23rd.
In addition, a recent report from the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that 60 counties around the world are reporting cases of the variant.
At least 146 Americans from 21 states have been infected with the highly contagious variant of coronavirus first detected in the UK
A new WHO report found that B 1.1.7. has been detected in 60 countries (yellow and striped), 10 more nations than seven days ago
There are currently 146 cases in 21 U.S. states, according to a DailyMail.com analysis of state and federal data.
This includes at least 46 cases in Florida; 40 in California; 13 in North Carolina; six in Colorado; five in Minnesota; four each in Indiana and New York; two in Connecticut, Maryland and Texas; and one in Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
The North Carolina cases are the most recent identified by MAKO Medical Laboratories, which has two locations in Henderson and the third in Raleigh.
“Our findings show that the mutation has begun to work throughout the United States,” said Steve Hoover, vice president of laboratory operations at MAKO Medical.
“We are in constant communication with public health leaders to keep them informed and up to date.”
Florida, however, leads the nation in 46-year-old cases.
Dr. Marco Salemi, a University of Florida professor and molecular biologist, told the Miami Herald that he is asking the state and federal government to expand surveillance of the new variant.
“We know he’s in Florida,” he said.
What percentage [of cases] it is impossible to say. The genomes we have were probably collected before or at the beginning of the introduction of [the variant] in Florida. ”
The Florida Department of Health has only sequenced about 3,000 samples so far.
Last week, the CDC released a report predicting that the new variant would become the predominant strain in March 2021.
This led President Joe Biden to ask for more funding for efforts to genetically sequence the virus at the federal level.
Meanwhile, in his weekly update published on Tuesday, the WHO announced that B 1.1.7. it is now in ten more countries than seven days ago.
Counties outside the UK to report variant cases include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, and the United States.
The WHO report also mentioned close cousins of the variant who were first identified in South Africa and Brazil.
The South African variant has already been identified in 23 countries, three nations more than ten days ago.
The strain first emerged in the south-east of England in October in County Kent and has quickly become the dominant strain in Britain.
It caused a massive increase in infections with one in 30 Londoners infected by it and plunged the country into a third blockade.
In a recent statement, said Dr. Ashish K Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health urgent aggressive action is needed to limit the spread of new strains, as various health systems experience a severe shortage of beds and resources.
“This new, more infectious variant will change the underlying dynamics of the pandemic, with an exponential growth in infections that will make the virus much harder to contain and overload our stressed healthcare system.
“The U.S. health care system is already staggering under the burden of the pandemic caused by the current (old) strain,” he wrote.
But perhaps most importantly, Jha says vaccination efforts need to be stepped up nationwide
Gigi Gronvall, an immunologist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, agreed.
“I don’t think anyone thinks this variant is the reason we’ve had such a terrible number in the United States, but it’s not a good indicator if you look at whether things could be even worse,” he told the Miami Herald.
So we need to put the vaccines in our arms as quickly as possible.
