December 14, the British government announced the emergence of a mutant virus in England, saying that its transmission capacity was 70% higher than before, and many countries in Europe and the United States immediately took measures to restrict the movement of British people. But senior officials of the U.S. health department seemed to disagree, saying that the current mutant virus is “no threat”.
On December 20th local time, Admiral Brett Giroir, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), was interviewed by an ABC program. The senior official in charge of the coronavirus testing in the United States said that the U.S. Department of Health will continue to pay attention to the British epidemic, but now “there is no need to sound the alarm bell” and believes that there is no need to restrict flights in the UK.
According to the interview transcript released by ABC, the host mentioned the virus mutation in the UK and asked what the government of Giro would do.
Giro first stressed that he did not think it was necessary for the United States to follow European countries to restrict flights in the UK, because the virus has mutated more than 4,000 times, and now there is “no sign that the mutant virus is conquering England”.
Girro then touted the effectiveness of the U.S. vaccine, saying that the vaccine was enough to deal with mutations: “We don’t know whether the virus is more lethal after mutation, but we have not found any kind of mutation that can immunize the virus.
I can’t say it won’t happen again, but the current vaccine should look enough to fight the existing virus.”
For these reasons, Giro said that the U.S. government will continue to pay attention to the situation of the epidemic in the UK, but the United States “does not need to sound the alarm bell for this matter” at present.
However, while touting how the vaccine “ends the vaccine”, Giro did not forget to remind the American people to pay attention to epidemic prevention measures at all times.
On the program, he called on the American people to wear masks in public places, maintain social distancing, wash their hands frequently, and limit the number and size of parties as much as possible.
Most other U.S. government officials hold similar views. According to Bloomberg, Moncef Slaoui, the head of the U.S. vaccine project, said that it is not clear whether the mutant virus has entered the United States or whether the virus can resist the existing coronavirus vaccine after mutation, but he believes that the United Kingdom The threat of the virus may be “exaggerated”.
“We can’t rule out the possibility of an immunization after a virus mutation, but at least it hasn’t happened right now.” Slavey said.
The incoming Biden team has the same views as Trump administration officials. Health officials from the Biden team also said they were still observing the development of the epidemic in the UK.
Biden-appointed HHS Health Director Vivek Murthy shares the same view as Giro at the moment. He believes that the vaccine is enough to deal with the mutant virus.” There is no evidence that the mutated virus is more deadly.” “There’s no reason to say that a vaccine must be ineffective against the mutated virus,” Murty said.
However, there are still some problems in the distribution and vaccination of vaccines in the United States. According to CNBC, the U.S. government made a mistake about the delivery time of the new batch of Pfizer vaccines, which caused a shortage of vaccine supplies in at least 14 states.
Under current plans, Pfizer will deliver 2 million vaccines to all parts of the United States this week, and Modena will deliver 5.9 million vaccines.
According to the data updated by the New York Times on the 18th local time, more than 128,000 people in the United States have been vaccinated. Because states report a large lag, the actual number of vaccinated should be higher.
However, it is estimated that it may not be possible to complete the vaccination of all medical staff in the United States and elderly elderly people at high risk this year.
Matt Hancock, the British Health Secretary, announced on the 14th that a “new mutant virus” is accelerating the spread in parts of England. On the 19th, British Prime Minister Johnson further revealed that the mutant virus transmission capacity was 70% higher than before, so he announced that London and most of the southeastern England would impose lockdown measures.
British health officials also claimed that there is no evidence that the mutant virus is more deadly.
Several European countries have taken measures to restrict the movement of people in Britain.
According to the BBC, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and other European countries have suspended passenger flights entering the United Kingdom, and cargo flights between Britain and France may also be affected. Canada, Argentina and other countries have also announced the suspension of flights to and from the United Kingdom.
According to statistics from Johns Hopkins University, December 21, a total of 2046,161 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed and 67,503 deaths have been recorded; the total number of COVID-19 in the United States has been confirmed, with a total of 178,600 deaths.
