SALT LAKE CITY – One case of the Brazilian COVID-19 variant has been discovered in Utah, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A Utah Department of Health spokesperson confirmed on Monday that one case of the variant has been found in the state. The Brazilian variant of the disease is also known as the P.1 variant, and 54 cases of that variant have been reported in the US so far, according to the CDC.
Arizona is currently the only state bordering Utah to have also discovered the P.1 variant, with four cases. Florida currently has 21 cases of the P.1 variant, the most of all US states, according to the CDC.
According to the CDC, 150 cases of the B.1.1.7 COVID-19 variant, native to the United Kingdom, have been discovered in Utah so far. That variant was first discovered in Salt Lake County in January. There have been 6,390 confirmed cases of the British variant in the US so far, the CDC reports.
So far, no cases of variant B.1.351, which originated in South Africa, have been detected in Utah in Utah. According to the CDC, there have been 194 cases of the South African variant in the US as of Monday.
While the CDC has reported only one case of the P.1 variant in Utah, it is possible that there are many more unconfirmed cases of the variant already.
According to the Utah Department of Health, public health laboratories perform whole genome sequencing on a limited selection of COVID-19 samples taken from PCR tests to confirm variant cases. The sequencing process takes a long time, so there is usually a delay in reporting variant cases.
Dr. Kelly Oakeson, chief bioinformatics and next-generation sequencing scientist at The Utah Public Health Laboratory, said in January when the British variant was discovered in Utah, he believed it was probably more widespread in the state than just one case.
“We don’t sequence every positive sample, so we only sequence about 10% – slightly less than that in some months,” Oakeson said. “So if we’ve found this out quickly since we started looking for it, it indicates to us that it’s probably more widespread than just this one person.”
COVID-19 vaccines have shown mixed but generally successful results against the variants of the virus.
A study of the Pfizer vaccine released earlier this month showed strong protection from the variants of the virus in Brazil and the UK, while protection against the South African variant was “robust but lower”, according to the study.
The state epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn of the Utah Department of Health said earlier this month that in addition to vaccinations, there are ways to protect Utahns from variants of the virus.
“It’s so important that when the vaccine is available to you, you get it,” Dunn said on March 11. “We also know how to protect ourselves from the variants, right? Masks work. Physical distance works. Staying home when you’re sick – it all works. So let’s keep using those tools until we’ve all been vaccinated.”