Credit: New Jersey National Guard via Flickr
Minnesota is now seeing outbreaks of the British variant of COVID-19 in four counties, health officials announced Friday.
The director of infectious diseases at the Minnesota Department of Health, Kris Ehresmann, says there are several cases of B.1.1.7. variants have now been found in Scott County, Blue Earth County, and an area of St. Louis County. Louis, near Aurora, in the Iron Range.
This adds to Carver County, which has already seen dozens of varying cases in recent weeks, the spread of which contact tracking has been linked to youth sports and recreation.
MDH said a two-day COVID testing event will be held Monday and Tuesday at the Aurora Community Center, while it has selected Mankato (in Blue Earth County) as the location for its seventh permanent community vaccination site.
Scientists say the British variant of SARS-CoV-2 can be up to 70% more contagious than the most common strain of the virus, and a study has suggested it is also potentially more deadly.
The Star Tribune revealed Sunday how MDH mapped the outbreak in Carver County, showing how the variant was quickly transmitted through sports equipment and schools, and revealed that an outbreak of at least 12 infections in a primary school was related to an individual on a sports team with five infections.
Its increase in Minnesota has coincided with the state’s COVID-19 cases being re-launched in recent weeks, as they had previously steadily dropped from the peak in late November.
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Hospitalizations have also increased, with 316 people hospitalized with COVID-19 as of March 18, an increase of more than 100 from the recent low of 210 on March 6.
It has aroused concern among health officials who fear another significant increase in cases before most of Minnesota’s population has been vaccinated.
Ehresmann described the state as “a race between variants and the vaccine.” Cases of South African and Brazilian variants in Minnesota have also been confirmed.
The three vaccines currently available in the United States right now, Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, are believed to retain their effectiveness against the UK variant, although the first results are mixed for the South African variants. and Brazilian.