Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the city’s health department is “very, very closely” following news of a new and potentially more contagious form of coronavirus in the UK.
Lightfoot said the city has been monitoring the latest developments ahead of the current reporting and the city is ready to “take any necessary action.”
“We’re following this closely, we’re digging down,” Lightfoot said at an unrelated news conference Monday. “I don’t think we know enough yet about what this potential new species is, how it will be transmitted, but trust me, we are following it closely and we will take whatever steps are necessary to protect the public.”
So far, British Airways will require travelers to test negative for the coronavirus before boarding flights to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Monday. Cuomo said at a press conference that he had also asked Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic to adhere to the same requirements.
Moncef Slaoui, the chief science adviser on the US government’s COVID-19 vaccine, said scientists are still trying to confirm whether the virus strain spreads more easily in the UK.
While that could be why it’s more common in the UK, Slaoui said in a briefing with reporters Monday that another possible explanation is that “seeding in the shadows happened” before scientists started looking for it.
Animal studies are needed to confirm that the species spreads more easily. Slaoui said that process will take several weeks.
In the meantime, he said there is no evidence that the variant causes a more serious illness or is more deadly. He also said vaccines are still expected to be effective against the virus strain, but scientists are working to confirm that.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a Pfizer board member, told CNBC Monday that the evidence suggests the new variant is more easily transmitted. But, he cautioned, “it does not appear to have mutated the virus’s surface proteins in such a way that they would slip past our vaccines or previous immunity. In fact, we don’t think that’s the case.”
From Canada to India, country after country banned flights from Britain, while France banned British trucks for 48 hours while the tax was being assessed.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed strict lockdowns in London and large parts of southern England on Saturday in response to the increasing coronavirus infections. He said the growth in the number of cases appeared to come from a new variant of the coronavirus that is about 70% more transmissible than existing strains.
Meanwhile, the European Union gave the green light to the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, paving the way for the first COVID-19 shots in the 27-country bloc to begin on December 27. The approval came just hours after the vaccine meets safety and quality standards according to the EU medicines regulatory body. It is already distributed in Great Britain and the US.