Contagious virus variant alarms scientists
Acontagious variant of the coronavirus spreading through Britain has left that nation grappling with new lockdowns, curtailed air travel and a surge in infections. Now the same variant has appeared in Colorado and California, threatening to complicate what had seemed a hopeful, if halting, path to recovery from the pandemic in the United States.
Scientists don’t knowhowwidely the new mutant may have spread in theunitedstates. But the answer to that question will color virtually every aspect of the nation’s pandemic response: hospital treatment, community lockdowns, school closures and more.
“The overall picture is pretty grim,” said Bill Hanage, a public health researcher at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The variant’s arrival makes it all the more imperative that Americans get vaccinations quickly and in great numbers, scientists said. A pathogen that spreads easily is more difficult to contain, and a greater percentage of the population — perhaps as much as 90 percent instead of the previously estimated 70 percent — must be inoculated to turn back the pandemic.
Yet even as the variant surfaced in the United States, officials with the Trump administration acknowledged Wednesday that the vaccine rollout was going too slowly. Just 2.1 million people had receivedtheir first dose as of Monday morning, far short of the goal of 20 million by the end of the year.
“We agree that that number is lower than what we hoped for,” said Moncef Slaoui, scientific adviser tooperationwarp Speed, the federal effort to accelerate vaccine development and distribution.
The federal government has enrolled 40,000 pharmacy locations in that program designed to accelerate vaccine distribution, Slaoui and other officials said.
The new variant, called B.1.1.7, isn’t thought to be more deadly than previous variants, and it doesn’t seem to cause more severe illness. Masks, physical distancing and hand hygiene are still the best ways to contain its spread.
Current vaccines likely will be effective against the variant and any others that may emerge in the short term, scientists said.
But given the mutant’s apparent contagiousness, scientists fear its toehold in the United States signals another difficult chapter in the pandemic.
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California announced Wednesday that a case of the new variant had been discovered in the state.
Officials in San Diegocounty later identified the patient as a 30year-manwho hadn’t traveled outside the United States, suggesting the virus was transmitted by someone else in the community — a sign that the variant already is spreading household contact of the man has developed symptoms, the officials said, and is being tested for the variant.
Officials in Colorado confirmed one patient and identified a second suspected case. Both men are in the National Guard assigned to a nursing home in Simla, about 80 miles southeast of Denver. The confirmed patient also hadn’t traveled.
“There’s no reason to think that that community is particularly special in any way,” Hanage said. “It’s completely reasonable to think it’s in a lot of other places, but we just haven’t looked for it yet.”
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said Wednesday that they were working with state laboratories in California, Delaware and Maryland to analyze patient samples for infection with the new variant. Agency scientists also plan to analyze up to 3,500 viral genomes each week to detect the newmutant and other variants as they emerge.
The virus’ debut in the United States underscores the need for urgent steps to tamp down transmission, experts said. If the variant is spreading in this country, it will bring not just an increase in the number of cases, but also of hospitalizations and deaths.
That’s because a variant that infects more people will reach more whoare vulnerable or frail, leading to more illness and fatalities even if the virus itself isn’t more deadly.
The number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 daily has been rising relentlessly since October, totaling nearly 125,000 on Wednesday. Those numbers are expected to swell as a result of family gatherings over the holidays.
“In places like the U.S. and the U.K., where the health care system is already at its breaking point, a huge surge of new cases on top of the exponential spread we’re already seeing is going to be really, really bad,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virus expert affiliated with Georgetown University in Washington.