More cases of a new variant of Covid were found in the US, which threatened to worsen the nation’s outbreak.

Three U.S. states have now identified cases of the new coronavirus strain in people with no travel history, a sign that the variant could already be spread unknowingly among Americans.

Florida health officials announced Thursday that they have found the first state case of Covid-19 with the new most infectious virus variant. The man, who lives in the county located north of West Palm Beach, is in his twenties with no travel history, according to the Florida Department of Health. Twitter post.

The Florida man is among the first handful of people to be diagnosed with the new variant, known as B.1.1.7., First identified in the UK. California has now identified at least four cases of the new strain in San Diego County among men with no history of travel. The cases came just days after Colorado health officials detected the first couple of cases in people who had not traveled.

“I’m not surprised you have any cases, and probably more cases, in California,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, a White House coronavirus adviser, told Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday, announcing that state health officials had found his first case. “We’ll probably see reports from other states.”

U.S. health officials have said the arrival of the variant in the country is not a surprise, though it could make things worse if it is allowed to spread uncontrollably. Although evidence indicates that the new strain is transmitted more easily and quickly compared to previous versions of the virus, it is not believed to cause more serious disease in infected people and current vaccines should still work against it, according to said officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at a conference call Wednesday.

However, the new variant threatens to make things worse if more people are hospitalized as a result of its spread, experts said. December was the deadliest month of the pandemic in the United States, as hospitals reached their capacity and the long-awaited vaccine launch ended slower than expected.

The nation reported more than 6.3 million new infections and more than 77,500 deaths during December, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. Looking ahead to 2021, there are currently more than 125,000 people hospitalized with Covid-19, more than double the highs set in mid-April last year, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project, run by journalists at The Atlantic .

Another cause for concern: the first cases of the new variant have been found in the country’s most populous states amid a busy holiday travel season, Mercedes Carnethon, vice president of preventive medicine at Northwestern University, told MSNBC on Friday. .

TSA officials said they examined 1.28 million passengers at U.S. airports the following Sunday at Christmas, the highest number since Covid stopped travel in mid-March.

“We can be confident based on the photographs we all saw of TSA checkpoints during the holidays that millions of people traveled between these destinations,” Carnethon said. “We can be pretty sure that this variant is now everywhere.”

Recent tests at Imperial College London also show that the new variant appears to affect people under the age of 20 more than older adults. Part of that change, however, could be because schools remained open for a period of closing orders, according to the study.

The age difference could be a problem, as young people are more likely to be out of the community as essential workers and not be the first to be vaccinated, Carnethon said.

“I think my priority, in my opinion, should be to reinforce the basic messages we know about how to stop community transmission,” Carnethon said. “As we all know, our vaccination strategy begins with strengthening our infrastructure of health workers. However, it is not necessarily the population that leads to the community spread of coronavirus.”