After the more contagion of the more contagion of the novel coronavirus in the United Kingdom, more than 40 countries and regions around the world cut off their routes with the United Kingdom to varying degrees.
However, so far, the United States has not restricted flights from the United Kingdom.
On December 22nd local time, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement that the mutant coronavirus is likely to have spread in the United States without detection.
On the same day, the World Health Organization released information related to mutant COVID-19.
“Preliminary analysis shows that mutant COVID-19 is more susceptible to human-to-human transmission, with an expected increase of 40% to 70% in contagion and an increase of 0.4 to a transmission index between 1.5 and 1.7”.
However, regarding the situation where mutant COVID-19 may have spread in the United States, Anthony Fauci, an infectious disease expert in the United States, said that considering that travel between countries around the world has not been interrupted, mutant COVID-19 has appeared in the United States, “I am not surprised at all.”
CDC: Variant COVID-19 is likely to have spread in the United States
On December 22nd local time, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a statement on its official website, saying that a new strain called “SARS-CoV-2 VUI 202012/01” began to become popular in southeast England and London in November this year, with 60% of the recent additions in London.
The confirmed case is related to the strain, which is being studied by British public health experts.
According to the US media CNBC, at present, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not identified the mutant virus through virus sequencing, because only 51,000 of the more than 17 million confirmed cases in the United States have been sequenced.
However, with the ongoing shuttle flights between the United States and the United Kingdom and the high prevalence of mutant COVID-19 in the UK, the new variants are likely to have spread in the United States without detection,” the CDC stressed.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in general, the virus will constantly change and new variants will appear over time.
These new variants will even infect humans again, but sometimes new variants will disappear. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the virus has undergone several mutations.
At present, it is too early to confirm this new variant, and we still need to do more research on the new strain to determine the extent of transmission of mutant COVID-19 in the United Kingdom and around the world, how the new strain is different from before, and the disease that mutant COVID-19 may cause.
The CDC also noted that while the new strain is more infectious, there is no evidence that the mutant COVID-19 can cause more serious illness or increase the risk of death.
Fauci: “Not surprised” that mutant coronavirus appears in the United States
According to CNN, on December 22 local time, Anthony Fauci, an infectious disease expert in the United States, was interviewed on the issue of mutant coronavirus.
“You need to assume that mutant coronavirus has begun to spread in the United States and is not the main strain of the virus. However, if it really appears in the United States, I am not surprised at all.”
“We’ve been looking at mutant COVID-19, but we don’t want to overreact,” Fauci said. At present, more than 40 countries and regions around the world have cut off routes with the UK to varying degrees, but Fauci advised at the White House coronavirus task force meeting that “do not interrupt the route with the UK”.
Fauci stressed, “I don’t think such a harsh move is necessary. We should seriously consider the possibility of testing British people for the virus before they arrive in the United States, because there is not enough evidence to block flights from the UK at present.”
Scott Gottlieb, the former director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said in an interview with CNBC that “new strains of the virus have appeared in the United States, but there is no indication that the vaccine will lose its effect at present.”
Gottlieb also warned that the future is still unclear over time and further mutations from COVID-19, “but I think COVID-19 will continue to mutate until people get widely vaccinated, even until the pandemic ends.”
The governors of New York and Washington take measures first.
So far, the U.S. federal government has not taken corresponding measures on the problem of mutating the novel coronavirus, but state governments have begun to take action.
According to NBC, on December 22 local time, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that New York State hospitals need to immediately investigate the confirmed patients to determine whether they have contracted the mutant novel coronavirus.
“If mutant COVID-19 has already appeared in New York State, I want to take immediate steps and quarantine confirmed cases, which is a time-related war and very urgent,” Cuomo stressed.
So far, New York State has tested more than 3,700 virus strains in the state, but no mutant COVID-19 strains have been found, and Cuomo said “the state health department has reached an agreement with six hospitals across the state to obtain more samples.”
On December 21st, local time, Cuomo also announced a new measure for British passengers, that is, flights from the United Kingdom need to provide negative certificates for passengers to test for the novel coronavirus.
On the same day, Washington Governor Jay Inslee also ordered a 14-day quarantine for passengers from the United Kingdom and South Africa. Inslee said he hoped that these epidemic prevention regulations would limit the spread of mutant coronavirus, and “mutant coronavirus is also a warning that the uncertainty and unpredictability of the COVID-19 epidemic still exists.”
WHO: Variant COVID-19 is more likely to spread from person to person
On December 22nd local time, the World Health Organization released information related to mutant COVID-19, saying that mutant COVID-19 is more likely to spread from person to person.
According to the WHO report, as of December 13 local time, a total of 1,108 cases of mutant COVID-19 have been reported in the United Kingdom.
In addition to the United Kingdom, confirmed cases of the mutant virus have also been found in Australia, Denmark, Italy, Iceland and the Netherlands.
WHO pointed out that there had been a surge in confirmed cases in the southeastern part of England, and after epidemiological studies and virological investigations there were variants in the novel coronavirus.
From 5 October to 13 December, more than 50% of confirmed cases in southeastern England were related to mutant COVID-19. By retrospectively, British public health experts found that mutant COVID-19 first appeared in Kent, southeast England, on September 20, which led to a surge in the number of confirmed cases in late November.
At the same time, public health experts also found most confirmed cases infected with mutant coronavirus. Under 60 years old.
At present, British health authorities are investigating this and further assessing the transmission of mutant COVID-19, the severity of infection, the risk of people re-infection and antibody response.
