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The first case of the COVID-19 variant has been identified in Lake County, health officials said on Saturday.
The Lake County Health Department has reported the first case of the B.1.1.7 variant of the coronavirus, which is the strain most commonly circulating in the UK in recent months.
The person infected with the variant had traveled overseas and had contact with a sick person before leaving to return to the United States in late December, health officials said.
According to the department, the individual did not show any symptoms of the coronavirus.
“We expect to see more cases of these newer variants in Lake County as they seem to spread more easily and faster than other variants,” said Dr Sana Ahmed, medical epidemiologist for LCHD. “It is extremely important that you follow quarantine recommendations and get tested if you have traveled or been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.”
Health officials recalled that studies suggest the currently available COVID-19 vaccine is effective against the new strains.
In Illinois, the first known case of the most contagious strain was announced by health officials on Friday, January 15.
A Chicago Department of Public Health investigation found the individual had traveled to the UK and the Middle East within 14 days of the diagnosis, officials said, noting that the department had worked to identify close contacts of the person to alert them of the quarantine and isolate him. .
While many remain uncertain about the new COVID-19 variant first discovered in the UK, Illinois’ top doctor said on Friday enough was known for people to take the proper precautions.
“… If anything is more transmissible, that would suggest we need to double the mask wearing,” Dr Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, said on Friday, also highlighting social distancing and the hand washing. “Like all of these things that we’ve said… the message isn’t really changing, it just means it’s more important now than ever to buy into it. [mitigations]. ”
A British scientist has revealed that some evidence suggests the strain carries a higher risk of death than the original strain, although he cautioned that the data is uncertain.
Patrick Vallance, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, said that for a man in his sixties with the original version of the virus, “the average risk is that for every 1,000 people infected, about 10 will unfortunately die.”
“With the new variant, for every 1,000 people infected, we can expect around 13 or 14 people to die,” he said.
At a coronavirus press briefing Friday, Ezike and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said mitigations could be increased statewide if there were numerous reports of the new variant.
“If we see a push from the British variant, we know that it starts to multiply very quickly, once it takes a significant position,” said Ezike. “We know the numbers are very, very low now. But that may change …”
The doctor had previously warned that the newly discovered strain could be dominant as early as March.
The British variant was first detected in September, World Health Organization officials previously announced. Since then, business has exploded across the UK, leading Prime Minister Boris Johnson to impose a nationwide lockdown.
The UK variant is one of two new contagious viral strains that have recently emerged, the CDC said in a telebriefing late last month.
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