#15,749
Four weeks ago Colorado's governor announced the 1st detection of the more transmissible B.1.1.7 COVID variant - which began raising alarm bells in the UK in mid-December - here in the United States.Just seven days ago, the number of B1.1.7 variant cases detected in the Untied States sat at 122 across 21 states.
Last night the CDC released their latest figures - which only sample a small number of cases - showing more than a doubling of cases (n=293) over the past week. While this variant is likely increasing around the nation, some of this jump is due to increased testing and surveillance.
Still, less than 1 in 300 positive COVID cases undergoes genomic sequencing, making the detection of variants haphazard at best.
On January 15th, in MMWR: Emergence Of SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 Lineage — United States, Dec 29, 2020–Jan 12, 2021, we looked at forecasts that B.1.1.7 could become dominant in the United States by March, and warnings that this B.1.1.7 variant warrants universal and increased compliance with mitigation strategies, including distancing and masking if we are to avoid seeing our healthcare systems overwhelmed.
Since then we've seen studies suggesting that the B.1.1.7 variant might produce more severe illness, and more fatal outcomes (see UK: NERVTAG paper on COVID-19 variant of concern B.1.1.7), although more data is needed to confirm.
With the announcement last night of the first detection of the Brazilian P.1 variant in the United States, and the South African B.1.351 variant likely here as well, the need for much better genomic testing and surveillance is one of the major challenges we face going into the second year of the COVID pandemic.
