The Secretary of Health, Dr. Rachel Levine, said that a person from Dauphin County gave positive results after a well-known international exposure. This variant is the same one that was first discovered in England in December.
Scientists in the UK have said there is no evidence that it would cause any more serious disease, but it could spread more easily.
The person had mild symptoms, which have been resolved since they finished their isolation at home, officials said.
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“Pennsylvania prepared for this variant by working closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and sent 10-35 random samples a week to the CDC in November to study sequencing and detect potential cases for this new COVID-19 variant. Levine said. “Public health experts are in the early stages of working to better understand this new variant, how it is spreading and how it affects people who are infected with it.”
To date, there have been 609,905 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state and 16,914 Pennsylvania residents have died from the virus.
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