Experts are surprised but cautiously optimistic as new cases of coronavirus in Florida continue to decline despite the high prevalence of the UK ‘super COVID’ variant there, suggesting the US could escape another wave sparked by viral mutations.
Florida is now leading the nation in confirmed cases of the B117 variant, which now accounts for an estimated half of all new cases there, but has seen a 75 percent decline in the total number of cases since early January.
It comes despite dire warnings from UK officials that the B117 variant is up to 70 percent more contagious than previous strands, and new research suggests it is twice as deadly, raising concerns that a variant hike could outpace vaccine rollout.
‘I think we’ll just keep looking at the data. If Florida cases continue to decline despite the circulating variants, the variant may not be as bad as predicted, ” Suzanne Judd, a PhD epidemiologist at the University of Alabama at the School of Public Health in Birmingham, told DailyMail .com.
“That’s why we should avoid speculating on variants until we have the data,” she added.
“If cases in Florida continue to decline despite the circulating variants, the variant may not be as bad as predicted,” PhD epidemiologist Suzanne Judd (not pictured) told DailyMail.com. Above, spring breakers will drop in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Thursday
Florida is leading the nation in confirmed variant cases, and the B117 variant accounts for an estimated half of all new cases there
Still, new cases in Florida have continued to decline, dropping 75% from early January, despite Super Bowl doomsday warnings and relaxed business restrictions.
The good news from Florida is an encouraging sign to the rest of us. It doesn’t mean America is out of the woods. But it does suggest we could be showing up sooner than we thought, ”Andrew Romano wrote for Yahoo News.
Florida leads the nation with 690 confirmed cases of the B117 variant – but surveillance tests estimate that the actual number of variant cases is much higher there.
Earlier this week, researchers showed up estimated that B117 had reached more than half of all new cases in Florida, after representing only 4 percent of cases a month ago.
But meanwhile, cases in Florida have fallen, despite doomsday predictions about the state’s lax restrictions on corporations and major rallies for Super Bowl LV in Tampa in early February.
Florida’s latest COVID peak peaked on Jan. 8 with 84 new cases per 100,000 residents daily, but cases have been declining steadily, reaching 22 per 100,000 on Thursday.
Hospital admissions have also decreased by half over the same period, as has Florida’s positivity rate, which now stands at 4.88 percent. The number of deaths has also fallen sharply.
The percentage of Florida surveillance tests with ‘S gene target failure’, the vast majority of which are B117 cases, is seen above 50% this week
The number of deaths in Florida has fallen sharply as the number of hospitalizations and cases has also declined
Meanwhile, 18.5 percent of Floridians have received at least one dose of COVID vaccine and 10 percent are now fully vaccinated, according to data from the CDC.
Judd, the epidemiologist, pointed out that data from Israel shows that even partial vaccination appears to limit the spread of B117, suggesting the vaccine rollout arrived just in time.
“While the variant spread rapidly in the UK, there was little data on how it would spread in the population with some degree of vaccination,” she said.
Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist and researcher, called the Florida trend a “ bellwether to know if the B.1.1.7 strain will hit the US. ”
And there is no sign of an increase in the number of cases. All good so far, ‘he tweeted this week.
Meanwhile, a disturbing new researcher has surfaced suggesting that the B117 variant, also known in the UK as the ‘Kent variant’, is both more deadly and more contagious.
Students have settled in Florida for spring break with Fort Lauderdale’s beaches teeming with maskless revelers. Florida is the B117 capital of the US, but the number of cases is declining
The more contagious variant, which crossed the UK late last year before spreading around the world, is between 30 percent and 100 percent more deadly, a new study finds.
Epidemiologists from the Universities of Exeter and Bristol said the data suggests the variant is associated with a significantly higher adult death rate compared to previously circulating strains.
Robert Challen, of the University of Exeter, lead author of the study, said: ‘In the community, death from Covid-19 is still a rare event, but the B117 variant increases the risk.
“This, coupled with its ability to spread quickly, makes B117 a threat that must be taken seriously.”
Researchers looked at death rates among people infected with the new variant and those infected with other strains.
They found that the variant first discovered in Kent resulted in 227 deaths in a sample of 54,906 patients – compared to 141 in the same number of closely matched patients with the previous strains.
Mutations of the virus have raised concerns about whether vaccines would be effective against the new strains, including the B117 strain.
But research suggests that the Pfizer shot is just as effective against the variant of the coronavirus as it is against the original pandemic strain, and other studies indicate that the Moderna vaccine is also very effective against the variant.