JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Just as the country has watched confirmed cases of COVID-19 rise, there is now another number to watch for: cases of a new, more contagious variant.
As of Sunday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, Florida had 46 confirmed cases of the more transmissible strain of COVID-19, which was first detected in the United Kingdom in December and has since begun to spread globally.
California had been the U.S. epicenter of the new strain -- now with 40 confirmed cases, according to the CDC -- but Florida has since eclipsed that.
As of Sunday, according to the CDC, there were 122 confirmed cases of the new strain in the United States. Of those, one was in Georgia.
Early evidence seems to indicate that the new strain is no more lethal than earlier strains that has sickened more than 24 million in the United States and killed nearly 400,000. Florida is now approaching 1.6 million confirmed cases, with more than 24,800 people in the state who have died related to the disease.
“This new strain is more contagious, and that means more people will get infected,” said Dr. Frederick Southwick, a professor of medicine and a specialist in infectious diseases at the University of Florida. “If we had a problem, we’re going to have more of a problem now.”
The first known case in Florida of the new variant was disclosed by health officials on New Year’s Eve, when officials identified a Martin County man with no known history of travel as the state’s first case of the variant.
“So when someone with no travel history becomes positive, that means it’s only widespread,” explained Chad Neilsen, UF Health Jacksonville director of accreditation and infection prevention.
Neilsen said the reason there aren’t more confirmed cases of the variant around the country is the same reason there weren’t that many confirmed coronavirus cases at the beginning of the pandemic. It’s not that the cases weren’t there. It’s about the number of people being tested.
“The Florida Department of Health probably has better ability to test for this variant, therefore, they’re identifying cases more quickly than say Texas or New York,” Neilsen said. “But certainly it was not surprising that it would become widespread.”
Here’s how testing for the variant works: Florida is one of 37 states part of the CDC’s Sars-Cov-2 Sequencing for Public Health Emergency Response, Epidemiology and Surveillance program. The Florida Department of Health will pick samples of positive tests, and those samples will be sent to state labs in either Tampa, South Florida or Jacksonville for sequencing.
“That genetic sequencing can take three to five days, so after initial infection, or initial identification of the virus, probably seven to 10 days give or take is how long it will take if it gets selected to sequence. That is how a variant is detected,” Neilsen said.
Between limited testing and the variant being more than 50% more contagious than the original strain, Neilsen warns that the number of cases infecting people is much higher.
“Suffice to say you should probably assume 1 out of 5 people that test positive for the virus will have the variant,” he said.
Dr. Glenn Morris, the director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida, echoed concerns among researchers that not enough resources have been invested in identifying the strains that have invaded communities across the country.
“As a scientist, I’m concerned that we monitor the inevitable evolution within these strains,” Morris said. “At this point, we don’t have enough data to get to the point where we need to be alarmed.
He added that it was too early to tell how widely the new strains will spread in Florida and other states.
Neilsen said treatment for the variant is the same as for the original strain.