Coronavirus United States
New virus mutation may already be spreading in America
UK-US travel, prevalence of strain in Britain raise risk it is infecting Americans, says CDC
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A doctor attending to a Covid-19 patient in the intensive care unit (ICU) at Sharp Chula Vista Medical Centre in California on Monday. The state is an epicentre of the latest surge in US cases, and ICU beds are scarce with hospitals also saying they lack enough doctors and nurses to care for patients.
PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
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WASHINGTON • The new variant of the coronavirus that has become prevalent in Britain in recent weeks could be in the United States undetected, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
No cases of the new strain have yet been found in the US, the CDC said on its website on Tuesday, but the agency said viruses have been sequenced from only about 51,000 infections so far, with the US passing the grim milestone of 18 million cases on Tuesday.
The latest million cases were recorded in just six days, as US Covid-19 fatalities cross 330,000, the most in the world.
Many US states and cities have imposed lockdowns and business closures to try to get a handle on a wave of illness driven by last month's Thanksgiving gatherings.
Travel between Britain and the US, and the prevalence of the strain in the former boost the chance that it is already infecting Americans, the CDC said.
Since last month, the strain has accounted for roughly 60 per cent of new coronavirus cases in London, according to the CDC.
Scientists are working to determine whether the strain is more transmissible, the agency said, and if the currently authorised vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/ BioNTech will protect people against it.
Americans were warned again on Tuesday not to travel for Christmas as the latest Covid-19 surge left hospitals struggling to find beds for the sick, making for a grim holiday season.
In California, an epicentre of the latest surge in US cases, intensive care unit (ICU) beds were scarce and hospitals said they lacked enough doctors and nurses to care for patients.
"The whole California ICU capacity has been going down. We are all struggling," said Dr Imran Mohammed of Sutter Roseville Medical Centre, north of Sacramento.
"We really don't want to see more than this. We will be challenged to see further ICU patients and we will have no place eventually."
With Americans already weary from nine months of the pandemic, top US officials were reportedly considering a ban on travel from Britain.
The potential that a new strain could evade the vaccines caused shares of Pfizer, Moderna and other drug-makers to decline on Tuesday, and worry that new quarantines to contain the fresh mutation could slow down the global recovery pressured stock markets more broadly.
It remains unclear, however, whether physical characteristics of the new variant have led to that prevalence, or if it is a by-product of people's interactions in London.
The coronavirus mutates regularly, the CDC said, acquiring roughly one new mutation in its genome every two weeks.
The agency said the possible consequences of a change in the virus' structure include the ability to spread more quickly, to cause either milder or more severe disease, to elude screening tests, to be less likely to be treated with existing drugs and to evade vaccines.
The latter is the most troubling possibility, the agency said.
Dr Moncef Slaoui, head of US vaccine programme Operation Warp Speed, said on Monday that he expected the current vaccines would still offer protection.
More than 600,000 Americans had received their first Covid-19 vaccine doses as at Monday, according to the CDC. The first wave of shots has so far gone to healthcare workers and nursing home residents, as well as some top government officials.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the US' top infectious disease specialist, also received the vaccine on Monday, along with other senior officials and six health workers at a live-streamed event at the National Institutes of Health.
Meanwhile, the US government is set to pay Pfizer nearly US$2 billion (S$2.7 billion) for 100 million additional doses of its Covid-19 vaccine.
The company will deliver at least 70 million doses by June 30 and the rest no later than July 31, Pfizer said yesterday, bringing the total number of doses to 200 million for a total price of about US$4 billion.
BLOOMBERG, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS
