U.S. officials eye new COVID-19 strain in UK, urge vigilance

[webfact]

U.S. officials eye new COVID-19 strain in UK, urge vigilance

 

FILE PHOTO: An electronic sign displays information as the British government imposes a stricter tiered set of restrictions amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in London, Britain, December 20, 2020. REUTERS/John Sibley/File Photo

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is monitoring the new strain of COVID-19 emerging in the United Kingdom, multiple U.S. officials said on Sunday, adding that it was unclear whether the mutated variant had made its way to America.

 

"We don't know yet. We are, of course... looking very carefully into this," U.S. COVID-19 vaccine program head Dr. Moncef Slaoui told CNN's "State of the Union" program.

 

Slaoui, chief scientific adviser for the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed, added that the UK mutation was "very unlikely" to be resistant to current vaccines, saying: "We can't exclude it, but it's not there now."

 

Other health officials from the outgoing Trump administration and the incoming Biden administration also said they were watching the strain rapidly spreading in Great Britain. The new UK variant appears 70% more transmissible, forcing new lockdown measures in Britain and travel restrictions from its European neighbors. 

 

U.S. President Donald Trump's Surgeon General Jerome Adams said while mutating viruses were not unusual, any new COVID-19 strain means Americans must be more vigilant about washing hands, wearing masks, keeping distance and avoiding crowds.

 

"Right now, we have no indication that it is going to hurt our ability to continue to vaccinate people or that it is any more dangerous or deadly than the strains that are currently out there that we know about it," Adams told CBS News' "Face the Nation" program.

 

Asked about the potential impact on U.S.-UK travel, Assistant U.S. Health Secretary Admiral Brett Giroir told ABC News' "This Week" program: "I don't think there should be any reason for alarm right now. We continue to watch."

 

"We don't know that it's more dangerous," Giroir, a White House Coronavirus Task Force member, added. "Right now, it looks like the vaccine should cover everything that we see."

 

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Idrees Ali; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Lisa Shumaker)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-12-21

 

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[Tug]

Amazing a responsible administration would have shut down incoming flights from Great Britain allready imo anytime this administration says they are looking into something is cause for alarm imo keep in mind trump is willing to write off 2 million dead Americans to achieve heard immunity (estimated dead) 

[Elkski]

On NPR news 2 hours ago they said the new mutation was " harder to detect".  Not sure what that means.   How did they calculate  that it  70% more transmissable? What Does this  mean? 

Have they identified the Samet  sakorn  DNA? 

[rabas]

3 hours ago, Elkski said:

On NPR news 2 hours ago they said the new mutation was " harder to detect".  Not sure what that means.   How did they calculate  that it  70% more transmissable? What Does this  mean? 

Have they identified the Samet  sakorn  DNA? 

Samut Sakhon is probably the G614 strain now spreading in Myanmar. G614 is the strain that has ravaged the West since February. It's much more transmissible than the initial China/Asia/Thai D614 strain.

 

This UK version is a new mutation, named B.1.1.7, that spreads even faster, they say. It somehow acquitted 17 new mutations all at once. HERE

[Sametboy2019]

 The new UK variant appears 70% more transmissible.

How do you use the word "appears" then mange to calculate a percentage?

[John Drake]

23 hours ago, webfact said:

Asked about the potential impact on U.S.-UK travel, Assistant U.S. Health Secretary Admiral Brett Giroir told ABC News' "This Week" program: "I don't think there should be any reason for alarm right now. We continue to watch."

 

Yeah, "watch" and "monitor." It's not like you should get off your butts  and actually enact some policy or something. Useless piece of garbage.

[Rimmer]

Grammar police post removed

[Elkski]

What  data does one use to calculate 70% more transmissable? I can guess its the 614G mutation but doesn't Thailand check and  reveal this?