Last month on December 14th, Britain announced that they had discovered a new, more contagious coronavirus variant within their country. Now, this new variant has been reported in over 50 countries. Even though there is no evidence to show that this variant is deadlier or more severe, a higher transmission rate will correlate with a higher death and hospitalization rate.
Although the discovery of new coronavirus variants aren't uncommon, it's when they develop specific mutations that it becomes a problem. In the United States, the more transmissive U.K. variant has not yet been found, but the CDC issued a statement saying "there is a strong possibility there are variants in the United States; however, it could take weeks or months to identify if there is a single variant of the virus that causes Covid-19 fueling the surge in the United States similar to the surge in the United Kingdom".
However, many experts predict that this new variant will be the dominant strain as soon as March, leading to even another surge of cases well into the spring. This comes amidst the slower than expected vaccinations in the U.S, but hopefully the speed of production and distribution is able to increase soon.
It's evident that many people have become restless and frustrated with all the Covid-19 protocols, and even though the U.S. is hitting record breaking cases and deaths each week, it seems like there is more to come.
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Now that I am commenting four days after this post, there are numerous articles online sharing that the more-contagious new strain, first discovered in the UK, has now been found in the US. Known as B.1.1.7 (latimes), a total of 63 infections (CDC, as of last Friday) of the new strain have been recorded in the US. It first surfaced in Colorado and has now been found in people in California, Florida, Connecticut, Georgia, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas. This new strain was only discovered about a month ago and has now spread to almost 10 states and as Brian mentioned, 50 countries. I think the quick spread of this new strain should serve as a wakeup call for how the US's relaxed travel restrictions, even within the US, can easily account for how this new strain has travelled from state to state. If the US wants to get the virus under control, new strain or not, without just waiting for the majority to be vaccinated, stricter regulations would be necessary. The virus does not stop at state lines nor country borders, as much as politicians and people would like. Unfortunately as death counts continue to reach new records each week, too many people seem to "want their lives back" and act in ways that promote the spread of the virus, ultimately their selfish choices are costing so many others their lives.
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