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Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced on Saturday that the state had confirmed a case of a variant coronavirus initially detected in South Africa.
The case was confirmed in an anonymous adult Baltimore resident with no history of overseas travel, suggesting that the variant is likely circulating in the community, the governor’s office said.
“The B.1.351 variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus first detected in South Africa has been identified in Maryland,” Hogan wrote in a Tweet. “We continue to monitor new variants closely and call on Marylanders to limit transmission by wearing masks, avoiding gatherings and washing their hands.”
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The news comes as Maryland has administered at least 535,638 vaccines in a state of approximately 6 million people. The seven-day average for daily vaccinations is over 25,000 people.
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The state also appears to be gradually descending from a turbulent winter in terms of the number of cases, when daily infections topped 3,700 on December 4 and again on January 8 and January 9, according to state data. Maryland recorded fewer than 2,000 daily cases on Jan.31 and Feb.1.
The statewide positivity rate is 5.61%, with a total of confirmed cases of around 355,600 and nearly 7,000 deaths related to the new virus.
The strain of coronavirus initially detected in South Africa is not the only mutated strain that may be circulating in Maryland. The governor’s office announced two confirmed cases of a highly transmissible British strain on January 12. That figure has since climbed to at least eight cases, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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Scientists believe the British strain spreads about 50% to 70% more easily from person to person, and some experts suggest that the B.1.1.7 strain may even be more deadly.
Early results also suggest that the vaccines will remain effective against the strains, although the South African strain, in particular, has reduced efficacy. For example, recent findings from Novavax reveal that its vaccine is 89% against COVID-19 disease, but has dropped to 60% among trial volunteers in South Africa. Including the HIV-positive volunteers, the overall protection against the South African variant was 49%, the company said.
Maryland is the second state in the country to report a case of South African strain, following earlier reports in South Carolina on Thursday.
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