Officials at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on December 30, the new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus first discovered in the UK could be spreading undetected in the US.
According to the US CDC, Colorado public health officials have detected the SARS-CoV-2 virus strain in the UK in a person who has never traveled in the past and is studying a suspected case. Both are members of the National Guard who worked in a nursing home with many cases of Covid-19. The new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has not been detected in the nursing home residents and it is not known whether two infected people were infected while working there. Both have been quarantined.
While the new strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus appears to be spreading more rapidly, health experts and researchers believe that this strain may not be more fatal than other strains. There is currently no evidence that the current vaccine is ineffective against this strain of the virus. A study published last week suggested that the variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus discovered in the UK was 56% more infectious than other strains.