SALT LAKE CITY – A case of the Brazilian version COVID-19 has been detected in Utah, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A Utah Department of Health spokesman confirmed Monday that a case of the variant has been found in the state. The Brazilian variant of the disease is also known as variant P.1, and a total of 54 cases of this variant have been reported in the United States so far, according to the CDC.
Arizona is currently the only state bordering Utah that has also detected variant P.1, with four cases. Florida currently has 21 P.1 cases, most of any US state, according to the CDC.
According to the CDC, there were 150 cases of COVID-19 variant B.1.1.7, originating in the United Kingdom, detected in Utah. This variant was first detected in Salt Lake County in January. There are currently 6,390 confirmed cases of the British variant in the US so far, the CDC reports.
No cases of variant B.1.351, originating from South Africa, have been detected so far in Utah. According to the CDC, there have been 194 cases of the South African variant in the US since Monday.
Although the CDC has reported only one case of variant P.1 in Utah, there may already be many other unconfirmed cases of variant.
Public health laboratories perform genome-wide sequencing on a limited selection of COVID-19 samples taken from PCR tests to confirm case variants, according to the Utah Department of Health. The sequencing process takes a long time, so there is usually a delay in reporting case variants.
Dr. Kelly Oakeson, chief scientist for bioinformatics and next-generation sequencing at the Utah Public Health Laboratory, said in January when the British version was detected in Utah, considering it likely more widespread in the state than a single case. .
“We don’t sequence every positive sample, so we only sequence about 10% – in a few months a little less than that,” Oakeson said. “So if we’ve detected this quickly since we’ve been looking for it, it indicates that it’s probably more widespread than just this individual.”
COVID-19 vaccines have shown mixed but generally successful results against virus variants.
A study of the Pfizer vaccine launched earlier this month showed strong protection for virus variants in Brazil and the United Kingdom, while protection against the South African variant was “robust but smaller,” according to the study.
Dr. Angela Dunn, a state epidemiologist with the Utah Department of Health, said earlier this month that there are ways beyond vaccinations to protect Utahns against virus variants.
“It’s so important that when the vaccine is available to you, you get it,” Dunn said on March 11. “And we know how to protect ourselves against the variants, right? The masks work. Physical distancing works. you are sick – everything works. So let’s keep using those tools until we all get vaccinated. “