NEWSOM: VACCINES SHOULD PROTECT AGAINST VARIANT
New strain found in multiple Southern California counties
A new, more infectious variant of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has been found in California, but the governor says vaccines currently being distributed across the state should protect against the new strain.
The state has identified four people in San Diego and two in San Bernardino who have been infected with the new strain, which was first identified in the United Kingdom in November, Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a Monday press conference. While the new strain is more infectious, Newsom said there’s no evidence yet it causes more severe illness and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believe the vaccines currently being distributed should protect against it.
“You’re more likely to get this strain, that’s why it’s more important to consider all the common sense things,” Newsom said, referring to preventative measures, such as physically distancing, avoiding gatherings, masking in public and frequent handwashing.
In a Thursday video, Humboldt County Health Officer Dr. Ian Hoffman said the new strain is on his radar and the county is looking into the availability of genomic testing for the new strain at a local level and will provide an update when available.
Newsom said the state does comprehensive genomics test
ing looking for different strains and conducts between 5,000 and 10,000 of such tests per week.
“One should just anticipate there will be others identified and we’ll know more about this in real time,” Newsom said.
There is not yet any evidence that the new strain causes more severe disease or higher mortality rates, but Public Health England issued a Dec. 20 press release stating “mortality is a lagging indicator” and the department will be monitoring mortality in the coming weeks.
There is evidence that shows infection rates grew faster than expected in areas where the variant was discovered to be circulating, the release states.
There are multiple strains of COVID-19 currently circulating across the globe, according to the CDC, and two others emerged recently in South Africa, which also seems to spread more quickly and easily than other varieties, and Nigeria, which does not yet appear to spread more easily or cause more severe illness.
Public health agencies are reporting there isn’t any evidence that the vaccine won’t be protective against the new strain, and Newsom said more vaccine manufacturers such as Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca are anticipated to get emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in the coming weeks.
The state’s Community Vaccine Advisory Committee is set to finalize who will be prioritized in Phase 1B and discuss who will be prioritized in Phase 1C of the vaccine rollout on Wednesday, Newsom said. Phase 1A prioritized health care workers and long-term care residents.
Tier 1 of Phase 1B is expected to prioritize people who are 75 years old or older and workers in education and childcare, emergency services, and food and agriculture. Tier 2 of Phase 1B is expected to prioritize people aged 65 or older, the homeless, the incarcerated and people working in a variety of sectors, such as transportation and critical manufacturing.
“Phase 1B is about 8 million people,” Newsom said. “Phase 1A, about three.”
Phase 1C is expected to prioritize people who are 50 or older, individuals between the ages of 16 and 64 who have underlying medical conditions, and individuals in sectors such as water and waste management, energy, financial services, communications and information technology, and more.
Vaccine distribution in Humboldt County, which was allotted 5,500 vaccines as of Dec. 31, has been progressing swiftly, Hoffman said. St. Joseph Health was allotted a little over 2,000 doses and has administered about 1,200, Hoffman said, and “other hospitals have gone through several more thousand.”
“Close to 50% of the vaccine that we have in county has already been administered,” Hoffman said, “and we’re working hard to get through the rest of that as quickly as possible.”