Just when we assumed that the COVID-19 pandemic was over, the UK recently uncovered a new COVID strain. It has been observed that the latest strain is more infectious than the preceding ones. The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has warned that the latest, more infectious strains of the novel coronavirus are likely to intensify the dissemination of the virus.
Cases of the latest strain of COVID, B.1.1.7., first identified in the UK, have also recently been found in the US. As per the researchers, modeling suggests that the already widespread outbreak of COVID-19 in the country could escalate.
“It means that it is going to be harder and harder to control it. Any of those measures we are going to have to do to a higher degree, including vaccination,” Dr Gregory Armstrong, who directs the Office of Advanced Molecular Detection at CDC’s respiratory diseases division, said.
“Multiple lines of evidence indicate that B.1.1.7 is more efficiently transmitted than are other SARS-CoV-2 variants,” Armstrong and colleagues wrote in the agency’s weekly report, the MMWR.
“Variant B.1.1.7 has the potential to increase the U.S. pandemic trajectory in the coming months.”
Existing methods to curb the spread of COVID-19, including vaccination, need to be stepped up, as per experts. The vaccination drives had begun in the US already, but the pace is slower than hoped for.
“Higher vaccination coverage might need to be achieved to protect the public,” the researchers wrote.
People will need to wear masks, skip events, and try to observe social isolation in public spaces from each other.
The new strain of COVID readily infects human cells, study has shown. The new strain of the virus has already been detected in the U.S. in around 10-12 states.
To see what would arise in the coming days, the CDC team ran an experimental model. How much more transmissible the latest strain of COVID is, and how much immunity still exists in the US population, is not understood. The latest version, based on certain hypotheses, is 50 percent more contagious than the already circulating prevalent virus strains.
“In this model, B.1.1.7 prevalence is initially low, yet because it is more transmissible than are current variants, it exhibits rapid growth in early 2021, becoming the predominant variant in March,” the CDC team wrote.
