Credit: New Jersey National Guard via Flickr
Minnesota is now seeing outbreaks of the UK variant of COVID-19 in four counties, health officials announced Friday.
Kris Ehresmann, Minnesota Department of Health director of Infectious Diseases, says multiple cases of the B.1.1.7. variant are now found in Scott County, Blue Earth County, and an area of St. Louis County near Aurora in the Iron Range.
That’s in addition to Carver County, which has already seen dozens of variant cases in recent weeks, whose spread of contact tracking goes back to youth sports and recreation.
MDH has said a two-day COVID testing event will be held at the Aurora Community Center on Mondays and Tuesdays, while it has chosen Mankato – in Blue Earth County – as the venue for its 7th permanent community vaccination site.
Scientists say the UK variant of SARS-CoV-2 can be up to 70% more contagious than the most common strain of the virus, and one study has suggested it may also be more deadly.
The Star Tribune on Sunday revealed how MDH mapped the Carver County outbreak and showed how the variant was rapidly transmitted through sports teams and schools, revealing that an outbreak of at least 12 infections in a primary school was linked to one person to a sports team. with five infections.
The rise in Minnesota coincided with the fact that COVID-19 cases in the state got back on track in recent weeks, having previously declined steadily since its peak in late November.
Subscribe: Subscribe to our BREAKING NEWS newsletters
Hospital admissions have also risen, with 316 people hospitalized with COVID-19 on March 18, up more than 100 from the recent low of 210 on March 6.
It has sparked concern among health officials who fear another significant increase in the number of cases before most of the Minnesota population is vaccinated.
Ehresmann described the state as being in a “race between the variants and the vaccine”. Cases of the South African and Brazilian variants have also been confirmed in Minnesota.
All three vaccines currently available in the US, Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, are believed to maintain their effectiveness against the UK variant, although initial results are mixed for the South African and Brazilian variants.