SEATTLE — At least 33 countries have a new variant of the coronavirus spreading. It makes up more than half of all new coronavirus cases in London -- and it's now in the United States.
The new variant seems to spread more easily between people, according to doctors. But so far, it doesn't seem to make people any sicker or lead to more deaths.
Cases have been reported in Colorado, California and Florida. In all three states, some of the people infected said they hadn't traveled.
"That means that somebody else in Colorado had introduced that mutation and that person got it. So that's a little bit scary more than we expected because it means there's a circulation of that virus already," said Dr. Ali Mokdad, with UW’s Institute for Health Metrics & Evaluation (IHME).
No cases of the new variant have been reported in Washington state but according to Mokdad, it may already be here, we just haven't been testing enough to find it.
"In the United States we need to have a surveillance for the genetic typing of this virus, and we need to stay on top of it, not only in the United States but elsewhere as well," he said.
Mutations can make vaccines less effective, he said.
"Until now the vaccine is still very effective, which is very good news, but we should not allow this virus to mutate and we should not allow our vaccine not to work against this virus," said Mokdad.
The key to stopping new strains, according to IHME, is to vaccinate and to do it quickly.
In the U.S., as many as three million flu vaccines can be given in a day. According to Mokdad, the U.S. could give as many of six million COVID-19 vaccines a day once there are enough for everyone.
But it would take a national plan to get there.
"Not leave it up to every state to decide how to do it," he said, "A state could figure out something that could help another state. So, having that national leadership is very important."
Dr. Jeff Duchin, health officer for Public Health - Seattle & King County, went to Twitter this weekend to share his thoughts about the new coronavirus variant. He said this new variant is another reminder that people should not stop their precautionary measures against the virus like mask wearing, social distancing, and handwashing.
"The variant strain spreads the same way as other COVID-19 strains, it's just better at it," Dr. Duchin wrote on Twitter. "For this reason, we need to get better at the same effective ways of stopping the spread until enough of us are vaccinated."
