Gov. Jared Polis and his officials announced that Denver and several other Colorado counties will move to the red level in a recently revamped color-coded version of the COVID-19 disc at the Boettcher Mansion in Denver, Colorado. , Tuesday, November 17, 2020.
Hyoung Chang | Denver Post | Getty Images
WASHINGTON – Colorado health officials said Wednesday they are investigating a second potential case of a potentially infectious new strain of Covid-19.
“There’s still a lot we don’t know about this variant,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said Wednesday, advising Colorado to follow CDC guidelines for the new year.
On Tuesday, Colorado health officials confirmed the first case of the country’s B.1.1.7 coronavirus variant.
The infected individual, a 20-year-old man, has no history of travel and is isolated with mild symptoms, officials said Tuesday.
The confirmed case and the second patient are members of the Colorado National Guard. Both people supported the Good Samaritan Society’s assisted living in Simla, about an hour and a half south of Denver.
Officials said Wednesday there were a total of six members of the Colorado National Guard working at the facility.
“Both cases are Colorado National Guard personnel deployed to support staff at the Good Samaritan Society nursing home in Simla,” explained the state’s chief epidemiologist, Dr. Rachel Herlihy, of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
He added that the people were tested on Dec. 24 at the state lab, a routine measure for members of the National Guard who worked near Covid-19 patients or areas prone to outbreaks.
“Right now we are investigating two possibilities about how these people may have acquired their infections,” Herlihy said.
“Given the detection of the variant in Colorado, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have allowed us to temporarily stop visits to nursing homes in order to quickly vaccinate that population,” Polis said.
“Not only is the risk to health felt more acutely by older Coloradoans, but social isolation is a difficult and emotional piece that so many seniors in nursing homes have faced,” he said, adding that the measure will safeguard the state’s oldest community.
Dr. Emily Travanty, director of the Laboratory Services Division of the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment, said officials are analyzing 24 suspicious samples that may contain mutations. He explained that there was not enough data to link the additional 24 samples with variant B.1.1.7.
Preliminary analysis of the new variant, first identified in the UK, suggests it may be to blame for Britain’s recent rise in cases.
The CDC said in December that the new strain could already circulate in the U.S. without warning. The CDC cited ongoing travel between the United Kingdom and the United States as an explanation for the potential arrival of the new variant.
Read more: The UK will impose tougher restrictions on millions of people as Covid cases skyrocket
The discovery of the strain in Britain led to the closure of borders in European countries such as Ireland, France, Belgium and Germany, as well as in countries outside the continent.
Last week, the British government confirmed that another infectious variant of the coronavirus identified in South Africa had also emerged in the UK. The South African strain has not yet been identified in the United States.