At least 52 cases of a coronavirus variant first identified in the United Kingdom were identified in the United States on Wednesday, according to the CDC.
This includes 26 cases in California, 22 cases in Florida, two cases in Colorado, and one case in Georgia and New York.
The CDC says this does not represent the total number of cases circulating in the US, but rather the number of cases found by analyzing positive samples. The agency warns that the numbers, which are expected to be updated Tuesday and Thursday, may not immediately match those of the state and local health departments.
While the variant appears to spread more easily than Covid-19, there is no evidence that it is more deadly or causes more serious illness, according to the CDC.
Experts suspect there could be many more cases in the US and have criticized the country for not doing more genetic sequencing of virus samples to check for mutations. On Sunday, a CDC official told CNN that the agency plans to more than double the number of samples it sequences in the next two weeks – with a target of 6,500 per week.
The earliest known U.S. sample containing the current version of the variant was taken in Florida on Dec. 19, according to the genomic database GISAID. However, collection dates are not available for all samples.