The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday that at least 52 cases of the new strain COVID-19 had been found in the U.S.
California had at least 26 cases of the variant first discovered last month in the UK.
Florida (22 cases), Colorado (two), Georgia (one) and New York (one) were other states where the new strain had been found, according to CNN.
Although the new variant appears to be more contagious than the new coronavirus, there is no evidence to show that it is more deadly. There is also no evidence that the strain can elude the effects of vaccines or treatments.
The CDC said the figures only indicated infections detected by analyzing positive samples and did not represent the total number of cases circulating in the country. In addition, the agency’s statistics may not immediately match those of local and state health departments.
According to experts, there could be many more cases of the variant in the United States that have criticized the country for not doing more genetic sequencing of virus samples to control mutations.
A CDC official told CNN that the agency planned to double the number of samples it sequences over the next two weeks, with the goal of 6,500 per week.
“It’s important that we control the virus and be able to detect these trends that have implications for public health and clinical medicine,” Dr. Gregory Armstrong, director of the CDC’s Office of Advanced Molecular Detection, told CNN on Sunday.
December 19 in Florida is when the oldest known sample of the new variant was found in the US, according to the GISAID genomic database. However, collection dates are not available for all samples.
Because coronaviruses are constantly mutating, doctors and scientists are concerned about the possibility that the virus may acquire changes that make it less vulnerable to vaccines or treatments.
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