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SEMINOLE COUNTY, Florida – For more than a year, the city of Altamonte Springs has been testing its sewage to predict the community spread of COVID-19.
Officials say they have detected the delta variant for weeks, but now believe they have found a new variant of the virus called ‘Delta Plus’.
Altamonte Springs City Manager Frank Martz said he confirmed the new variant last week.
READ: Central Florida hospitals pushed to the brink as COVID-19 cases continue to rise
“We found it on Monday, then we confirmed it on Thursday. The delta plus variant and the delta variant are currently the most dominant variant in Central Florida, ”he said.
USF Health’s Dr. Michael Teng says that while delta plus looks new, it’s actually just one more mutation of the delta variant which is sensitive to the same neutralizing antibodies.
“This particular mutation has appeared in several variants before and is also found in the beta and gamma variants, so the mutation itself is not new to us, it just entered the delta variant as well,” Teng said.
Coronavirus: here’s what we now know about Delta Plus
Teng says that at this point there haven’t been enough cases to definitively say one way or another if the vaccines protect us from delta plus, but the belief is that they will.
“We know that other variants that had this mutation were also susceptible to the vaccine, so I guess that won’t have a major effect on the effectiveness of the vaccine,” he said.
Health officials say that while delta plus may possibly be of concern, the greater concern is the highly infectious delta variant.
Martz says the concern is how these variants continue to spread and how they could potentially impact essential services.
READ: Seminole County schools will require face masks for students unless parents opt out
“If we have police, sewage treatment plant workers or garbage collectors who are infected and require quarantine, it could have a profound impact on our ability to keep our community safe,” Martz said.
Right now, authorities are focused on reducing the rate of transmission of the virus using a layered approach of social distancing, use of masks and vaccination.
This is why the county is setting up vaccine pods in several high schools to coincide with the start of the school year on Tuesday.
A list of locations and times is available here.
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