SALT LAKE CITY – The SARS-CoV-2 strain that appeared in the UK late last year arrived in Utah, but has not been a major factor in recent cases, according to new data provided by the state health department.
The Utah Department of Health has added a breakdown of three different coronavirus variants to its COVID-19 data table. SARS-CoV-2 is the coronavirus that leads to COVID-19 in humans.
The data show that since Thursday, there have been 33 cases confirmed by B.1.1.7, which is more commonly referred to as the “UK variant”. This is only 0.4% of all SARS-CoV-2 cases tested for variants.
Twenty-eight of the case variants were discovered in Salt Lake County, while two were discovered in Utah County and two others were discovered in Summit County. The other variant found came from a patient in Davis County.
Most cases were collected in early February.
Utah has not yet received a confirmed case of variants B.1.351 (South Africa) or P.1 (Brazil), which are two of the other major variants that have occurred since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
That doesn’t mean he’s either not in Utah or I’m close. Wyoming health officials reported earlier this week that they found their first case with the South African variant of a positive case in Teton County in January, according to the Casper Star-Tribune.
It was previously revealed that the UK version has arrived in Utah. The state health department announced the first confirmed case on January 15.
Various variants of coronavirus have caused concern to public health officials since they were first discovered. For example, the researchers found that the British version is spreading faster than the original virus first discovered in 2019. Dr. Angela Dunn, the state epidemiologist for the Utah Department of Health, said it led to “more severe diseases.” younger populations.
Recent studies show mixed, but especially encouraging, results on COVID-19 vaccination efforts.
A study published in Nature earlier this week found that Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were 10.3 to 12.4 times less effective in containing the South African variant. The good news is that both vaccines have shown strong protection against the British version.
Another report published in the New England Journal of Medicine this week found that the Pfizer vaccine offered strong protection against variants in Brazil and the United Kingdom. He also found that the vaccine offers “robust but less” protection in the South African version.
That being said, experts emphasized the vaccine’s success in the context of the “real world”. The Pfizer vaccine has been shown to be 92% effective against severe diseases after two vaccines and 62% effective after one, according to the Associated Press.
Moderna also began testing an adjusted version of its vaccine in humans earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported. The company previously announced that it will change its vaccine due to concerns about the South African variant.
While she warned that COVID-19 has proven to be “certainly unpredictable” over the past year, Dunn said on Thursday that there is still enough evidence that vaccines work well against various variants.
Dunn added that she is pleased with the speed of vaccination efforts in Utah in recent weeks. Among vaccines and methods to prevent new cases of COVID-19, there are ways to slow down or stop the spread of various variants of coronavirus.
“It’s so important that when the vaccine is available to you, you get it,” she said. “We also know how to protect ourselves against the variants, don’t we? The masks work. Physical distancing works. Staying home when you’re sick – everything works. So let’s keep using those tools until we all get vaccinated.
“We also have one of the best public health surveillance teams in the country,” Dunn added. “This allows us to monitor the number of variants of cases in our condition and understand the spread and then receive this information in real time. This allows you to make the best and most informed decisions to protect yourself and your loved ones against COVID. “