Coronavirus: second case of UK Covid-19 variant found in US
- California announced its first confirmed case of new variant
- Confirmed Colorado case was member of National Guard
A second US case of the highly transmissible Covid-19 variant that emerged in the UK has been detected in California, a day after Colorado reported the nation’s first known infection.
California Governor Gavin Newsom revealed the case Wednesday during a virtual conversation with Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. Meanwhile, Colorado officials said on Wednesday that they’re investigating another possible infection involving the new strain in their state.
State health officials in Colorado said Wednesday a second potential case was being investigated there, and that tests were being conducted on samples from other people who may have been exposed to the mutation.
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“I’m not surprised that you have a case,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Newsom during their conversation. “We likely will be seeing reports from other states too.”
In Colorado, both patients were members of a National Guard unit sent on December 23 to Good Samaritan Society Nursing Home in Simla, Colorado, as the facility struggled with staff shortages caused by a coronavirus outbreak. Routine testing conducted the day after they arrived showed telltale signs of the recently emerged variant that has been spreading widely in the UK.
The new variant has also been detected in several European countries, as well as in Canada, Australia, India, South Korea and Japan, among others.
Although experts believe the newly approved Covid vaccines will be effective against the British variant, the emergence of a more highly transmissible strain of the virus could make a swift roll-out of vaccine immunisations all the more critical.