Covid variants could ‘undermine all our efforts’

New, highly transmissible variants of Covid-19 “risk reversing” national control of the pandemic and could “undermine all our efforts” against the disease if the virus were to proliferate in different parts of the globe, according to the chief of the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday.

Senior US health officials have warned in recent weeks that the emergence of highly contagious variants, particularly the B.1.1.7 strain that has emerged in the UK, could reverse the current downward trajectory of infections in the US and delay the country’s recovery from the pandemic. .

The problem is not isolated in the United States. As the coronavirus spreads, it makes a large number of copies of itself, and each version is a little different from the last, experts say. As more and more people are infected, the more likely it is that problematic mutations will arise.

“Even if you don’t necessarily want to be part of the global effort for health, we have to do it because any effort that we make, that we advance here in this country, could be undermined in the blink of an eye. of these emerging variants, ”said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, at the National Academy of Medicine and the American Public Health Association on Wednesday.

Scientists are not surprised by the emergence of the variants and reiterated that currently available vaccines should still work against them, even if they might not be as effective as they were against the original “wild” strain.

Moderna said on Wednesday she had shipped booster doses specifically targeting the South African-spreading variant known as strain B.1.351 to the National Institutes of Health.

“We know that this virus knows no geographic boundaries and that it is more urgent than ever to tackle this reality, given the rapid proliferation of Covid-19 variants that risk reversing the progress that has been made. made to control this pandemic, ”Walensky said.

The United States reports a weekly average of around 71,562 new cases of Covid-19 per day, a 12% drop from a week ago and a significant drop from when the average for new cases in the states United peaked at nearly 250,000 cases per day in early January, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

While not all countries are reporting similar declines, global cases of Covid-19 in the United States have fallen for six straight weeks from Sunday, according to the latest World Health Organization situation report released on Tuesday. .

This drop is good news as countries rush to administer their initial doses of Covid-19 vaccines. While some countries have been administering vaccines since December, some are just starting to receive their first vaccines.

The first shipment of vaccines delivered under the World Health Organization’s COVAX program arrived in Ghana on Wednesday. Some experts have previously said that equitable distribution of vaccines may be too late as richer countries have made their own deals with vaccine manufacturers, claiming their initial supply of doses.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has been a stark reminder of our interconnectedness as a global community,” Walensky said.

– CNBC’s Berkeley Lovelace Jr. and Natasha Turak contributed to this report.