United States records record number of Covid-19 hospitalizations

At least 52 cases of a variant coronavirus first identified in the UK have been identified in the US, according to the CDC on Wednesday.

This includes 26 cases in California, 22 cases in Florida, two cases in Colorado, and one case in Georgia and New York.

The CDC says this does not represent the total number of circulating cases in the United States, but rather those that were discovered by testing positive samples. The agency warns that its figures, which are expected to be updated on Tuesdays and Thursdays, may not immediately match those for state and local health departments.

Although the variant appears to spread more easily than Covid-19, there is no evidence that it is more deadly or causes more serious illness, according to the CDC.

Experts suspect there could be many more cases in the United States and have criticized the country for not doing more genetic sequencing of virus samples to watch for mutations. On Sunday, a CDC official told CNN the agency plans to more than double the number of samples it is sequencing over the next two weeks – with a goal of 6,500 per week.

The first known US sample containing the current version of the variant was collected on December 19 in Florida, according to the GISAID genomic database. However, collection dates are not available for all samples.