An infectious variant of the coronavirus spreading through Britain has left that country affected by new locks, reducing air travel and an increase in infections. He has now appeared in Colorado and California, threatening what seemed hopeful, if stopped, on a path to overcoming the pandemic.
Scientists do not know how widely the new mutant may have spread in the United States. But the answer to that question colors almost every aspect of the answer: hospital treatment, community locks, school closures and more.
“The whole picture is very bleak,” said Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
The advent of the variable also makes it more important that Americans get vaccines in large numbers, and faster, scientists said. An easily transmitted pathogen is more difficult to absorb, and a larger percentage of the population must be taken to reverse the pandemic.
But even as the opposite revealed, officials with the Trump administration on Wednesday acknowledged that the distribution of the vaccine was going too slowly. Just 2.1 million people had received their first dose on Monday morning, well below the 20 million target.
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“We agree that figure is lower than we had hoped,” said Moncef Slaoui, scientific advisor to Operation Warp Speed, the federal effort to accelerate vaccine development and circulation.
The federal government has registered 40,000 drug outlets in that program designed to accelerate the spread of vaccines, Slaoui and other officials said.
The new variant, called B.1.1.7, is not thought to be more lethal than other versions of the virus, and does not appear to cause a more serious illness. Masks, body speed and hand hygiene are still the best ways to keep out its spread. Conventional vaccines are likely to be effective against the variant and any other that may appear in the short term.
But given the dangerous nature of the mutant ‘s appearance, scientists fear that its toehold in the United States is destroying another difficult chapter in the pandemic. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California Wednesday said a case of the opposite has been found in the state.
San Diego County officials later identified the patient as a 30-year-old man who had not traveled outside the United States, suggesting the virus was transmitted by someone else in the community – a sign that the new version is already rolling out. The man’s home contact has developed symptoms, officials said, and is being tested.
Colorado officers confirmed one patient and identified a second suspect, the two men in the National Guard assigned to a nursing home in Simla, Colorado, about 80 miles southeast of Denver . The patient was also undiagnosed on travel.
“There’s no reason to think that community is particularly special in any way,” Hanage said. “It’s perfectly reasonable to think it’s in many other places, but we haven’t looked for it yet.”
Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday that they are working with state laboratories in California, Delaware and Maryland to examine patient samples for disease. Group scientists also plan to study up to 3,500 viral genomes each week to detect the new mutant and others as they emerge.
The virus outbreak in the United States underscores the need for urgent measures to prevent the spread, experts said. If the variability spreads in this country, it will lead to an increase not only in the number of cases but also in the number of hospitals and deaths.
That’s because up to a variable that affects more people who are more vulnerable or vulnerable, leading to more illness and death even if the virus itself is not more lethal.
The number of people hospitalized for Covid-19 per day has been rising steadily since October, reaching nearly 125,000 on Wednesday. These numbers are expected to rise as a result of family gatherings over the holidays.
“In places like the US and the UK, where the health care system is already at this stage, there is a huge increase in new cases in addition to the abstract distribution we are already seeing to to be very bad, ”they said. Angela Rasmussen, a geologist affiliated with Georgetown University in Washington.
“Not only is that going to increase the number of Covid deaths, but it is likely to increase the number of deaths from other causes as well. ”
People infected with the variant may need different care than earlier coronavirus patients, putting more strain on the health care system, experts said.
“We are still learning how these variables might respond to other Covid-19 drugs and therapies, including monoclonal antibodies and convalescent plasma,” said Dr. Henry Walke, CDC event manager for Covid’s response. , at the press conference.
The news is also ramping up the urgency for Americans to be vaccinated, as it raises the threshold for so-called herd protection – the percentage of people who need to be protected in order to contain a threat. That threshold is probably 90% now, compared to the 70% of experts previously evaluated.
At least 2 million Americans need to get vaccinated every week to prevent the health care system from bouncing even under the normal increase, experts estimate, not to mention an increase that the new variant will bring. -into.
The mutant virus appears to spread in the same ways that the coronavirus always does, suggesting well-known measures – closing incompetent businesses and enforcing mask orders and physical speed – keeps the virus at bay.
“It’s not like this difference suddenly has new capabilities or can suddenly cross over great distances outdoors,” Rasmussen said.
But the ease with which the new version spreads means that even stricter restrictions may be needed, scientists said. “This change was not halted by the stronger interventions implemented in the UK in November,” Hanage said. “And that means we need more. ”
That tends to be difficult at a time when many Americans are already opposing restrictions.
On Wednesday, about a quarter of shoppers entering the Simla Food Store in Colorado left their faces undetected, just half a block from the nursing home where the baby is believed to have arrived. mutant virus.
Read | Simla, Colorado: The smallest city expected to receive the new coronavirus strain
“They chew on us because they don’t think this is true,” said Cené Kurtchi, 71, who runs a café in the town and urges fans to wear a mask. “I think politics is part of it, part of it is in denial. People don’t want to admit that even a small place like Simla is in danger. ”
British authorities first detected the mutant virus in September. Earlier this month they quickly announced that variability had become a major issue, accounting for over 60% of new cases in London and surrounding areas.
“I would expect a similar path” in the United States, said Trevor Bedford, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. This variance seems to make up less than 1% of cases now, he estimated, but it could be like most cases by March.
The variant has 23 mutations, compared to the original virus found in Wuhan, China. Seventeen mutations have emerged since the virus disappeared from its most recent ancestor, said Dr Muge Cevik, an infectious disease expert at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and a scientific adviser to the British government.
The speed with which the virus has undergone so many changes worries scientists, who expected the coronavirus to grow much more slowly.
Conventional vaccine candidates should continue to protect people from illness, several experts said. But the appearance of the new variant, which includes at least one mutation that weakens the body ‘s immune system, makes it likely that vaccines will need to be changed regularly, as they do to stay effective against the flu virus.
Scientists are still unsure how easily the mutant will spread. Initial estimates were about 70% more referrals, but since then the figure has been revised to 56% and could fall even lower, Cevik said.
But with every new victim, the coronavirus has more chances of getting around, and therefore more chances of occurring mutations that will benefit it – by making it more mobile, like for example, or more susceptible to the immune system.
“If there’s going to be a lot of that going on, huge amounts of virus replication around the world, you’re going to get a lot of different changes,” said Dr Dan Barouch, expert- expert at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
“If a virus is relatively more suitable for humans, it will quickly overpower the world’s population.”
Cevik offered one glimmer of hope. Early reports from Britain stated that the new variant is spreading more easily among young children. But those recommendations were based on trends in older teens, who respond to the virus as adults, and can be explained by groups in high schools, Cevik said.
“It was an early profiteering and it caused a great deal of distress,” she said. “There is no evidence to suggest that this new variation was more common in some age groups. ”