WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is following the new variant of COVID-19 emerging in the United Kingdom, multiple US officials said Sunday, adding that it was unclear whether the mutated variant had made its way to America.
“We don’t know yet. We are of course looking at this very carefully,” said Dr. Moncef Slaoui, head of the US COVID-19 vaccine program, on CNN’s “State of the Union” program.
Slaoui, chief scientific adviser for the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed, added that the British mutation would be “highly unlikely” to be resistant to current vaccines, saying, “We can’t rule it out, but it is not there now. “
Other health officials from the outgoing Trump administration and incoming Biden administration also said they saw the tension spreading rapidly in Britain. The new UK variant appears 70% more transferable, enforcing new lockdown measures in Britain and travel restrictions from its European neighbors.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s Surgeon General Jerome Adams said that while mutating viruses were not uncommon, any new COVID-19 strain means Americans should be more vigilant about washing hands, wearing masks, keeping their distance and avoiding crowds.
“At this time, we have no evidence that it will harm our ability to continue to vaccinate humans or be more dangerous or deadly than the species that currently exist and that we know will harm our ability,” he said. Adams on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” program.
When asked about the potential impact on travel between the US and the UK, Assistant Secretary of Public Health Admiral Brett Giroir told ABC News’s “This Week” program, “I don’t think there is any reason at this point. should be for concern. We’ll keep looking. “
“We don’t know if it’s more dangerous,” added Giroir, a member of the White House’s Coronavirus Task Force. “Right now it seems that the vaccine should cover everything we see.”
(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Idrees Ali; edited by Daniel Wallis and Lisa Shumaker)
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