Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, said the new variant of the coronavirus that has spread in the United Kingdom may already be circulating in the United States.
“We don’t have proof that it’s here, but we do suspect that it is likely here, given the global interconnectedness,” Giroir said Monday on ABC’s Good Morning America. “We have no evidence that it’s here. It’s certainly not widespread here, but we need to look and make sure it’s not here.”
Giroir said that while the new strain appears to be more contagious than other COVID-19 variants, there is “no evidence that it is more serious” or that those who contract the U.K. strain are at a higher risk of being hospitalized or dying.
“And we still believe — don’t have absolute proof — but we have very good evidence and a good belief that the vaccines will still be effective,” he said.
Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb made a similar prediction during a Sunday interview, saying the variant is “probably here in the United States, and it could be here in a reasonable number at this point.”
“We don’t sequence a lot of samples in this country, and a lot of that sequencing that does get done gets done in private labs and doesn’t get aggregated into public databases. That needs to be fixed,” Gottlieb said. “In the U.K., they’re sequencing about 10% of all the samples. Here, we’re doing a fraction of 1%.”
The new strain was discovered last week and has since been detected in several countries, prompting increased travel restrictions from countries and businesses to the U.K.
United Airlines announced on Christmas Eve that it will join several other airliners in mandating that passengers from the U.K. provide proof of a negative coronavirus test within three days of departure.
The U.K. has been plagued with nearly 2.3 million cases of COVID-19, resulting in some 70,800 deaths. Worldwide, that number is nearly 81 million confirmed cases and 1.7 million deaths.
