The South African variant of the coronavirus has been detected in a person hospitalized in New York City, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Monday.
At an Albany press conference, Cuomo stressed that the affected individual is not a New Yorker and that there are no indications that tension is circulating in the Empire State.
“The patient was taken from Connecticut directly to a New York City hospital,” Cuomo said. “I was not a resident of New York. was a Connecticut person who was taken to a New York City hospital for a procedure.
“We have no evidence of any spread in New York State so far.”
Cuomo did not provide any details about the patient or his condition and did not specify which hospital he was in.
As the governor pointed out, experts are monitoring the mutation for fear it could be more deadly and more resistant to vaccines.
“The South African variant is the variant they look at most closely,” he said. “The South African variant, they care about their mortality and their relationship to the vaccine.”
A highly contagious strain of the UK virus was detected in New York last month and a study published on Sunday identified seven new mutations in the United States, at least one of which is circulating in the northeast.