Katie Blackley / 90.5 WESA It is likely the new strain of the coronavirus that was first identified in the U.K. is already circulating in Allegheny County, according to the chair of the county’s board of health. “The public health messages don’t change [because of the new strain] ... We need to continue to hunker down, follow all the masking, physical distancing, and other mitigation efforts that we’re already doing," said Dr. Lee Harrison, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh, during a Wednesday board meeting While the U.K. variant is not more deadly than current dominate strain of the coronavirus, it is more contagious--by perhaps more than 50 percent. Therefore, as this strain spreads, cases will increase—which means hospitalizations and deaths will also rise.