The White House Coronavirus Task Force warned in a report this week that a rapid increase in the number of cases this winter could be due to a domestic variant of the virus, separate from the UK variant.
“This fall / winter wave is nearly twice the rate of the spring and summer peaks,” the task force wrote in its weekly report, obtained by The Hill.
“This acceleration suggests that there may be a US variant that has evolved here, in addition to the UK variant that is already spreading in our communities and may be 50% more transferable,” the report states.
“Aggressive restriction should be used to match a more aggressive virus; without uniform implementation of effective face masking (two- or three-layered and well-fitting) and strict social distance, epidemics could quickly worsen as these variants spread and become predominant, ”it continued.
The report does not say there is hard evidence of a new strain of the virus, but instead that cases are increasing so rapidly that it could indicate a more contagious strain in the US. The United Kingdom has been hit hard by a new, more contagious, strain that was discovered there and has already been found in several US states.
“This is actually not the fact that we have discovered another variant here in the United States,” former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said on CNBC Friday when asked about the report.
“It’s mostly pattern recognition where we fit our curve on top of the UK curve, and right now the trajectory of what follows here in the United States looks a lot like what happened in the UK,” he added.
The British strain of the virus is thus far considered to be more contagious, but not more deadly. It is also not thought to be resistant to vaccines, although research is ongoing.
The US has regularly set new records for daily infections and deaths from the virus in recent weeks as the country struggles to get the pandemic under control.
Johns Hopkins University reported that there were 4,085 coronavirus deaths in the US on Thursday, the first time the country had surpassed 4,000 deaths in one day.
The rollout of approved Pfizer and Moderna vaccines has been marred by confusion over distribution as officials try to prioritize who should get the injections first and how to deliver them quickly without losing doses.
To date, about 6 million of the approximately 21 million divided doses have been administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Trump administration is encouraging states to expand the categories of people who are eligible for the vaccine doses as a way to speed up the process and ensure that strict criteria do not slow it down.
The task force this week in its report urged states not to delay the vaccination of people over age 65 or those at higher risk of serious complications from the virus.
“Messages should aim at proactively testing individuals under 40 to prevent asymptomatic silent spread to their families and a call to action for immediate testing and rapid infusion of monoclonal antibodies for those at risk of serious disease,” it states. report. “Every hospital should have outpatient infusion sites that should be immediately available to save lives.”
When asked about the report on Friday, the CDC said there is a “strong possibility” that there are variants in the United States, but it will take time to determine if there is a single variant fueling the wave. like in the UK, and no such thing. variant has been identified so far.
“Based on scientific understanding of viruses, it is very likely that many variants are evolving simultaneously around the world,” said a CDC spokesman. “In addition, there is a strong possibility that there are variants in the United States, but it could be [take] weeks or months to determine if there is a single variant of the virus causing COVID-19, fueling the wave in the United States, similar to the wave in the UK. “
“Researchers have been tracking American strains since the start of the pandemic, including 5,700 samples collected in November and December,” the spokesman added. “To date, neither researchers nor analysts at CDC have seen the emergence of any particular variant in the United States, as has been seen with the emergence of B.1.1.7 in the UK or B.1.351 in South Africa.”