Coronavirus: South African variant identified in the United States for the first time | American News

A new variant of the coronavirus identified in South Africa has been found in the United States for the first time.

South Carolina officials say two of those cases have been diagnosed in the state. The two cases do not appear to be related, and people do not have a recent travel history, according to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.

Viruses are constantly mutating, and many variants of the coronavirus are circulating around the world. However, scientists are primarily concerned with three that seem to spread more easily.

Other variants first reported in the UK and Brazil have already been confirmed in the US.

The researchers predicted that it was only a matter of time before the variant identified in South Africa also reached the United States.

Speaking early Thursday on ABC’s Good Morning America, America’s leading infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, said the South African variant has not yet been in the United States – but within hours later the situation seemed to have changed.

He said the South African variant “bothers me” because it appears more resistant to existing approved vaccines, prompting producers to start developing booster shots.

Joe Biden reinstated Covid-19 travel restrictions on Monday for most non-U.S. Travelers from Brazil, the UK and South Africa. The CDC currently recommends Americans not to travel.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is evaluating a request from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) to help administer the Covid-19 vaccine, a spokesperson said Thursday.

“Given the importance of the request, it will be reviewed urgently but carefully to determine which DoD assets can be safely made available to support the effort,” a Pentagon spokesperson said, John Kirby, in a statement.

Although the statement does not indicate the number of soldiers who could be involved, a US official said it could number in the thousands.

And in a worrying development in New York City, the state health department may have underestimated the death toll from Covid-19 among residents of state nursing homes by nearly 50%, according to a report released Thursday by the state attorney general’s office.

The report, released as the state attorney’s office continues to investigate nursing homes’ response to the Covid-19 pandemic, says some facilities have underreported deaths to the health department of the state.

It also found that the health department did not count the deaths of nursing home residents transferred and died in hospitals in some cases.

“As the pandemic and our investigations continue, it is imperative that we understand why residents of nursing homes in New York have suffered needlessly at such an alarming rate,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James , in a press release.

The report highlights several errors in the state’s Covid-19 response to nursing homes, for which Governor Andrew Cuomo has been criticized since the spring, when New York was at the center of the coronavirus outbreak.

Cuomo’s administration has been criticized in particular for the guidelines it issued on March 25, saying nursing homes could not deny entry to Covid or suspected Covid patients.

That directive was overturned by an executive order in May, but the attorney general’s report concluded that it “may have led to an increased risk of death in some facilities” where the disease has spread like wildfire.

A representative for Cuomo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The New York Department of Health reported 6,423 nursing home resident deaths from Covid-19 from March to August 3, based on reports from 619 nursing homes, although that number may be as high as 50% lower than reality, according to the attorney general’s report. said.