A new, more transmissible variant of coronavirus first discovered in the United Kingdom has been detected in 10 US states, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said, warning that it could become the dominant circulating variant in the United States. until March.
The variant, known as B.1.1.7, is considered to be twice as transmissible as the current version of the virus circulating in the US, but so far, there is no evidence that it would cause more severe diseases or be transmitted differently.
Its rapid spread will increase the burden on health resources at a time when infections are on the rise, further affecting tense healthcare resources and increasing the need for better adherence to mitigation strategies, such as social distancing and wearing masks. , the CDC said Friday in its weekly report on death and illness.
It also increases the percentage of the population that needs to be vaccinated to get protective immunity from herds to control the pandemic, the CDC said.
The British variant is currently in 10 states, but has been diagnosed in only 76 of the 23 million cases reported so far in the US.
However, this version of the virus is likely to be more widespread in the country than is currently being reported, according to CDC scientists.
Former FDA chief who leads the vaccine
Separately on Friday, US President-elect Joe Biden elected David Kessler, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for a superior role in the new administration’s efforts to increase the availability of COVID-19 vaccines, the team said. Biden’s transition. .
The news came as Biden’s team predicted that the United States would mark about 500,000 deaths due to the pandemic by next month, and as the president-elect had to outline plans to increase vaccinations.
Kessler, a pediatrician and lawyer who led the FDA under Presidents George HW Bush and Bill Clinton, will be the administration’s chief COVID-19 response chief.
The Biden administration intends to reorganize the vaccine distribution effort that outgoing President Donald Trump’s administration has called Operation Warp Speed, said spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
Biden called the launch of the Trump administration’s vaccine a “negative failure.”
His own plan calls on Congress to spend $ 20 billion on vaccine distribution.
“We did not fully fund the COVID response,” Ron Klain, Biden’s chief of staff, said in an interview with the Washington Post on Friday.
“We will see 500,000 deaths in this country sometime next month,” Klain said.
Kessler was co-chair of Biden’s pandemic advisory board. As head of the FDA, Kessler reduced the time required to approve drugs to treat AIDS and moved to try to regulate the tobacco industry.
His appointment comes at a critical time for the government’s effort to accelerate the development and distribution of vaccines and coronavirus treatments in a country that has been particularly affected by the virus.
Biden has promised to receive 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine injected into Americans in his first 100 days in office.
This rate is more than double the current rate, but it would still leave most of the country without blows until the end of April.
The Trump administration has aimed to deliver doses of vaccine to 20 million Americans by the end of 2020 – but only 11.1 million shots have been administered since Thursday, according to CDC data.
In an attempt to expand vaccination efforts, the Trump administration said Tuesday it was releasing millions of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine it had retained for the second shot.
The move was a departure from a previous strategy of storing enough doses to ensure that the second required dose of vaccines is available.
Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, which were approved last month, require two doses.