Dr. Anthony Fauci warned the variant strain of the coronavirus now plaguing the United Kingdom would spread from state to state in the United States.
“You’ll be hearing reports from other states and more cases in the state that is already reported. Unfortunately, that’s just the reality of the way these viruses spread,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the Today show on Thursday. “The good news is that it does not appear to be more virulent, namely, making people more sick and leading to more death.”
“When you have so much of it in the U.K., which then spread to other countries in Europe and Canada, it was inevitable that it would be here,” Fauci said.
Researchers have estimated that the new strain may be 50% to 70% more contagious. The variant has thus far been discovered in Colorado and California.
Fauci had previously warned that the variant was likely already in the U.S.
“That’s certainly possible I mean, when you have this amount of spread within a place like the U.K., that you really need to assume that it’s here already, and certainly is not the dominant strain, but I would not be surprised at all if it is already here,” Fauci said just before Christmas.
The Centers for Disease Control issued new travel restrictions on visitors from Britain after the strain was identified. But the fact that the Colorado patient with the new strain of the virus had no recent travel history is leading some experts to suggest it is too late to contain the spread.
“The virus is becoming more fit, and we’re like a deer in the headlights,” Dr. Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute, told the Daily Mail. “We’re behind in finding it. Colorado is likely one of many places it’s landed here. It’s all over the place. How can you ban travel from everywhere?”
