The Wadsworth Laboratory in Albany has begun aggressive research of the new, highly contagious Covid-19 strain that has been discovered in the UK, said an official release issued by the New York State government on Tuesday. Already, the laboratory, officially called the Wadsworth Center, which is the research-intensive public health laboratory of the New York State Department of Health (DoH), has looked at more than 3,700 virus sequences identified in New York, but has yet to find the variant present in any of the samples, it said. Wadsworth and DoH have forged agreements with six hospitals from across the state to obtain additional samples and is continuing to make arrangements with other hospitals to do the same, the Xinhua news agency reported.