updated: Dec 31 2020, 12:47 ist
A contagious variant of the coronavirus spreading through Britain has left that nation grappling with new lockdowns, curtailed air travel and a surge in infections. Now it has appeared in Colorado and California, threatening to complicate what had seemed a hopeful, if halting, path to recovery from the pandemic.
Scientists do not know how widely the new mutant may have spread in the United States. But the answer to that question will colour virtually every aspect of the response: hospital treatment, community lockdowns, school closures and more.
“The overall picture is pretty grim,” said Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Colorado National Guardsman has 1st reported US case of virus variant Colleen Slevin and Carla K. Johnson, The Associated Press and Davis Winkie December 30, 2020 Colorado Army National Guard Spc. Michael Price, a medic with the 928th Medical Company (Area Support) at Fort Carson, instructs nurses from a nursing home in Grand Junction on COVID-19 testing procedures in June. (Senior Master Sgt. John Rohrer/Army) The first person in the U.S. known to be infected with a new and apparently more contagious variant of the coronavirus was identified Wednesday as a Colorado National Guardsman who had been sent to help out at a nursing home struggling with an outbreak. And health officials said a second Guard member may have it, too.
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Colorado Guardsman has 1st reported US case of virus variant
By Staff | Dec 31, 2020
Shoppers wear face masks while in search of after-Christmas bargains in shops in the Denver Pavilions Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020, in downtown Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
DENVER (AP) A Colorado National Guard member has the first reported U.S. case of a new and seemingly more contagious variant of the coronavirus that has set off alarm in Britain, while a second case is suspected in another Guard member, health officials said Wednesday.
The two were sent on Dec. 23 to work at a nursing home struggling with an outbreak of the virus in a small town outside Denver, said Dr. Rachel Herlihy, the state’s epidemiologist.