First U.S. case of new COVID strain confirmed in Colorado, experts say
Colorado officials confirmed Tuesday the first U.S. case of a more contagious coronavirus strain first discovered in the United Kingdom. The person is a man in his 20s who has no prior travel history, officials said.
The Colorado State Laboratory confirmed the case and notified the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Gov. Jared Polis said in a news release. The man is in isolation in Elbert County and will stay there until cleared by officials.
Public health officials will also be conducting an investigation, according to the release. The man doesn’t have any close contacts but officials are still working to identify other cases.
“There is a lot we don’t know about this new COVID-19 variant, but scientists in the United Kingdom are warning the world that it is significantly more contagious. The health and safety of Coloradans is our top priority and we will closely monitor this case, as well as all COVID-19 indicators, very closely. We are working to prevent spread and contain the virus at all levels,” Polis said in the news release.
Officials said the Colorado lab was the first in the U.S. to identify the new variant.
So far, the new variant has been found in the U.K., Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan, Lebanon, Singapore, Australia, United Arab Emirates, India, South Korea, Pakistan and now the U.S. as of Dec. 29, according to Business Insider.
Similar but slightly different new coronavirus strains have been found in Nigeria and South Africa, too.
Word of a more contagious coronavirus strain circulating overseas first reached the U.S. after officials in the U.K. announced new travel restrictions and lockdown measures in the country on Dec. 20.
The new variant appears to spread more easily between people and may be up to 70% more transmissible than other existing coronavirus strains, McClatchy News previously reported.
However, scientists say there’s no evidence the new variant is more deadly or resistant to COVID-19 vaccines.
“Of course we should all be concerned about the emergence of a new and distinct variant of SARS-CoV-2. However, it is important to point out that it is still the same virus, causing the same disease,” Mark Harris, a virology professor at the University of Leeds in England, said in a statement.
“The mechanism by which it is transmitted is also the same, but the genetic changes in this variant appear to enable it to transmit more efficiently, although the biological explanation for this increased rate of transmission remains to be determined,” Harris added.
The new variant was first identified in England on Sept. 20, accounting for about 26% of all cases by mid-November in the area, according to U.K. chief science advisor Patrick Vallance, Science Magazine reported. “By the week commencing the 9th of December, these figures were much higher. So, in London, over 60% of all the cases were the new variant.”
Scientists are concerned about the new strain because it developed 17 mutations at once, “a feat never seen before,” the outlet said, eight of which are involved with the coronavirus’ spike protein — the molecule it uses to infect human cells.
Immune systems use these spiky proteins to remember the virus and create antibodies to fight them, but if they become unrecognizable, efforts to prevent the pathogen from attacking again may not work.
Scientists think this new strain may have evolved within a single patient experiencing a long infection that gave the virus time to learn which changes it needed to continue spreading and thus surviving.
However, scientists don’t have enough evidence to confirm this hypothesis. Another explanation is that a superspreader event led to the massive spread of this one strain.
This story was originally published December 29, 2020 at 4:08 PM with the headline "First U.S. case of new COVID strain confirmed in Colorado, experts say."
