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New Jersey recorded the first known death in the United States from the British coronavirus strain, state officials said on Wednesday.
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The White House COVID-19 team has said separately that the country is identifying cases of the new strain too slowly.
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Earlier in January, the UK entered a new lockdown to reduce the transmission and effects of the new variant.
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New Jersey State Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli announced on Wednesday that a person has died from the variant coronavirus identified in the UK, marking the first known death in the US from the new strain.
The new variant is more transmissible and has contributed to a sharp increase in cases and deaths in the UK.
“It is more important than ever with the variant to continue to mask social distance, to stay home when you are sick,” Persichilli said at the press conference. Officials added that there are at least six cases of the new strain identified in New Jersey, but the data is “soft.”
Persichilli added that one of those people had traveled abroad.
Eddy Bresnitz, a COVID-19 advisor for New Jersey said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had prepared tests for the variants, and Governor Phil Murphy added that with the newly identified variant, New Jersey and the federal government need to move faster. on vaccine distribution.
“It’s a pretty complex system that they’ve launched at this point, and we’re part of it,” Bresnitz said. Persichilli added that the person who died from the new COVID-19 strain had significant underlying conditions.
Conference officials added that current vaccines are effective against the variant.
“We’ve been operating under the assumption that it’s here, and it’s confirmation of that,” Murphy said. “And that number will only increase.”
In early January, the UK entered new national lockdowns to reduce the transmission and effects of the new variant.
Last week, British health officials said the variant could be more deadly, which could be due to a number of reasons – including the viral load and the number of additional people it could infect – such as Business Insider’s Aylin Woodward reported.
In New York, state officials told reporters on Wednesday that 42 cases of the British variant had been identified.
“We don’t know exactly what’s going on with the new strains,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo told reporters at a press briefing. “And the concept of not knowing is very disturbing to me.”
The Biden administration’s COVID-19 response team said in a meeting on Wednesday that the United States is slowly identifying the new variant.
“Believe it or not, we are 43rd in the world for genomic sequencing,” White House COVID coordinator Jeff Zients said on Wednesday.
White House officials added that as of January, 26,308 cases of the British variant had been confirmed in 26 states.
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