US gearing up to track three COVID-19 variants

Washington: Three worrisome Covid-19 variants are now circulating in the US and the federal government needs significant resources to track their progress, according to the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The variants, which emerged initially in the UK, South Africa and Brazil, have all now been seen in the US, said Rochelle Walensky, the CDC chief, in a question and answer session hosted by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The agency has already warned that the highly contagious mutant strain that emerged in the UK could become dominant among Americans in the next two months. There are now 19 cases of the mutation first reported in South Africa in the US, she said, and two cases of a variant initially detected in Brazil in two states.

One priority for fighting the variants in the US is to put strong public health surveillance in place that can track changes in the virus, according to Walensky. The CDC is partnering with state laboratories to get 750 samples a week to sequence, she said, and has arranged with private and academic laboratories to contribute data as well.


Additionally, the CDC is already working with makers of current vaccines to see if they can tweak their shots to work better against the variants, according to Walensky. “So that if down the line we need a bivalent vaccine or a booster vaccine, we're ready to go,” she said.