State fears spread of COVID variant from U.K. NEW YORK: Six hospitals, state lab are testing for more-transmissible COVID-19 strain seen in the UK. By JOE MAHONEY CNHI News Service Dec 22, 2020 Dec 22, 2020 ALBANY â State officials are so concerned that a variant strain of the COVID-19 contagion has already made its way to New York that they have enlisted several medical centers and a laboratory to begin testing for it. Wadsworth Laboratory, a state Department of Health facility, has already begun to research the mutated variation of the virus that has spread through the United Kingdom. But after thousands of testing samples were analyzed in New York it has not yet been documented, officials said.