Reports late Friday suggested a third new strain, from the U.S., could be driving the spread of the coronavirus throughout the country.
The reports of a domestic variant cited documents shared by the White House Task Force with governors that analyzed the rapid rate of spread. The U.S. has set new grim records in daily cases, hospitalizations and deaths this week.
“This acceleration suggests there may be a USA variant that has evolved here, in addition to the UK variant that is already spreading in our communities and may be 50% more transmissible,” the task force wrote in its weekly report, which was obtained by The Hill.
But if such a variant exists, it has yet to be identified, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“It could [take] weeks or months to identify if there is a single variant of the virus that causes COVID-19, fueling the surge in the United States similar to the surge in the United Kingdom,” the CDC said in a statement to Yahoo Finance.
The more we let this virus spread, the more we are giving this virus options to mutate Dr. Ashish Jha, Dean of Brown University School of Public Health
There are already two new strains driving global spread of the virus. The strain from the U.K., known as B.1.1.7, and a strain from South Africa, known as B.1.351 — which has not yet been detected in the U.S., but is leading to surges in the U.K. — have been cause for concern among health experts this week.
Dr. Ashish Jha, Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told Yahoo Finance that while the U.K. strain represents just 1% of cases now, it could be the dominant strain by early March.
Jha added that the danger to allowing further spread rather than curbing the spread through mitigation tactics and vaccinations is greater chance for mutations.
“The more we let this virus spread, the more we are giving this virus options to mutate,” he said.
But the CDC said there is no such known spread based on a USA variant.
While there are and have been variants throughout the pandemic, and “there is a strong possibility there are variants in the United States,” no one strain can be identified as driving the spread, according to the statement.
In addition, researchers have analyzed 5,700 samples collected in November and December and none has shown a dominant strain spreading the way the U.K. and South African variants have been spreading globally, according to the CDC.
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