PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. – The new and seemingly more contagious variant of the coronavirus, which first emerged in the UK, is spreading in the US Colorado and California each have a confirmed case. Although it has not been reported in Florida, a USF scientist says the new species is likely already present.
“So if it’s in Colorado and California, it’s probably already here in Florida,” said Dr. Michael Teng, a virologist and associate professor of medicine at the University of South Florida.
While the variant appears to be more transferable, it is no more deadly.
“It’s here, but it’s not something to panic,” said Dr. Teng.
Health experts say our vaccines should be about as effective at treating the variant as our current strain of the virus once the general public is vaccinated. But there is a major concern.
“We don’t do much active surveillance for this right now,” said Dr. Teng.
Officials in Colorado and California used genetic sequencing to discover the new species, but this type of screening is not as widespread in the US.
“The UK has put a lot of effort into it and has done pretty well with sequencing like 7% of all their cases. The US, on the other hand, has about 0.3% sequencing. That’s 20 times less than the UK,” he said.
Dr. Teng cites the latest data from the GISAID Initiative, which provides open access to global coronavirus genomic data.
Sequencing is a powerful tool in the fight against the coronavirus. It allows scientists to detect and control the virus. They were able to identify how one type of virus led to an outbreak and devise a plan to contain it by the community. It also allows them to see how the virus has changed and whether a mutation is negatively affecting the effectiveness of our current vaccines.
“We are the world leader in advanced genomics research [but] for the number of cases we have, the US is about 43rd in the world in terms of genome sequencing, “said Dr. Teng.
Isabel Rosales
It’s like flying without radar.
“The next variant might be one of those that we really don’t want in our community, and that could cause the vaccine to lose some of its effectiveness. That would be very bad. We are fully capable of detecting it. But if we are not looking for it. We’ll never find it, ”he said.
He says the US already has the brilliant minds and technology to keep up with the UK’s output.
It’s not the lack of capacity in the United States. It’s the lack of a really well-defined program with strong leadership and an incentive to do this, ”he said.
Dr. Teng believes it’s up to the American public to push leaders for more sequencing.
“What we want to do is try to tell leaders to get down to it, and really do some tracking, because we really need to be able to track,” he said.
On Thursday, December 31, the FDOH confirmed a case of the new variant in Florida.
Florida has evidence of the first identified case of the UK COVID-19 variant in Martin County. The individual is a man in his twenties with no travel history. The department is working on this investigation with the CDC. We encourage everyone to continue to apply COVID-19 mitigation.
– Florida Dept. Health (@HealthyFla) January 1, 2021