UK’s Covid virus strain reaches US

First case in US had no travel history; Chile first Latin American country to report new variant

WASHINGTON: A new variant of the coronavirus originally detected in UK has been found in a Colorado man who had not been travelling, triggering a host of questions about how the first US case showed up in the Rocky Mountain state.

The new strain pushed Britain to a new daily record of infections and led South Africa to impose a raft of new measures.

The EU health agency warned that the strain carried a high risk for more hospitalisations and deaths because it spreads more easily. Colorado Governor Jared Polis said a man in his 20s in Elbert County near Denver was infected with the variant known as B.1.1.7 and is isolating.

Covid-19 hospitalisations are back at an all-time high in the US at more than 121,000 as of Monday. In Los Angeles, ambulances have waited all day to unload Covid patients, with more than 95% of hospitals forced to divert new cases away, and one reportedly treating patients in its gift shop and chapel.

Luke Letlow, who was to have been Louisiana’s newest Republican member of the US House, has died from complications related to Covid-19 only days before being sworn into office. He was 41.

Meanwhile, Chile on Tuesday became the first Latin American country to detect the new strain, in a woman who returned there from Madrid after also travelling to Britain and Dubai. Health authorities announced that from December 31, everyone arriving in Chile would have to spend 10 days in quarantine.

The new strain was also detected in the United Arab Emirates, which has shattered its single-day record of new coronavirus infections, with 1,723 cases recorded on Wednesday.

Switzerland documented five cases of UK virus variant and two of a mutation first found in South Africa.

Tokyo’s coronavirus outbreak is severe and could explode in the coming days just as Japan begins its New Year’s holiday period, in which millions of people usually move around the country, the city’s governor Yuriko Koike said on Wednesday.

Germany’s daily coronavirus death toll crossed 1,000 for the first time on Wednesday, with politicians predicting an extension of the county’s partial lockdown beyond the current January 10 deadline.

A total of 1,129 deaths were reported by the Robert Koch Institute disease control centre, breaking the previous daily record of 962 logged last Wednesday. There were 22,459 new daily infections.

Meanwhile, internal documents obtained by The Associated Press showed that top Chinese officials had quietly ordered strict controls on all Covid-19 research in the country, cloaking the search for the origins of the virus in secrecy.