The new, more contagious strain of COVID-19 first identified in the UK has been found in Chicago, city health officials announced Friday.
“The case was identified by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine through sequencing analysis of a biobank specimen from samples from positive COVID-19 tests,” the Chicago Department of Public Health said in a statement.
A CDPH investigation found that the person had traveled to the UK and the Middle East in the 14 days prior to diagnosis, officials said, noting that the department had worked to identify the person’s close contacts to them to warn of quarantine and isolation.
“This news is not surprising and does not change our guidelines on COVID-19. We need to redouble the recommended security strategies that we know will help stop the spread of this virus, ”said CDPH Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady. “To protect Chicago, keep wearing a mask, socialize, wash your hands often, don’t have outside guests in your house, and get vaccinated when it’s your turn.”
This is the first known case to be identified in both Chicago and Illinois, although the state’s top doctor has repeatedly warned that the species was likely already present and could become dominant within months.
“When we heard about these and other COVID-19 variants, we increased our surveillance efforts by running genomic sequencing tests on a greater number of specimens,” said IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike Friday. “We will continue to work with our academic partners, local health departments such as CDPH, hospitals and the CDC to monitor additional cases.”
The British variant was first discovered in September, World Health Organization officials previously announced. Since then, things have skyrocketed in the UK, leading to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to impose a national lockdown.
The British variant is one of two new infectious viral strains that have recently surfaced, the CDC said in a telebriefing late last month. While the evidence so far does not indicate that both appear to result in more serious infections or higher death rates, the CDC’s COVID-19 incident manager, Dr. Henry Walke said that the increased ease of transmission could translate into many more cases.