A more transmissible variant of the coronavirus identified in South Africa has been detected for the first time on US soil, in two adults with no travel history and no connection to each other, officials said yesterday.
The Covid-19 respiratory disease is caused by the coronavirus.
The cases were found in the state of South Carolina, according to a statement.
“The arrival of the Sars-CoV-2 variant in our state is an important reminder to all South Carolinians that the fight against this deadly virus is far from over,” said Brannon Traxler, the interim public health director of the state’s health department.
The B.1.351 variant has been identified in more than 30 countries and scientists had anticipated it could already be in the US.
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a statement confirming the development, adding it was working to expand a national system to detect mutations.
Current US capacity to detect emerging strains is far behind many other developed countries.
Scientists are more worried about this mutation than they are about the better known B.1.1.7 variant first identified in Britain, which has been seen now in dozens of US states.
On Monday, officials in Minnesota announced the first case of another more transmissible variant, P.1, in a person who had recently returned from Brazil.
New variants of the coronavirus are circulating more widely in France every week and a tighter curfew put in place earlier this month has not managed to curb the spread of the virus, Health Minister Olivier Veran told a news conference yesterday.
He said the new variants of the virus – mainly the British variant – are circulating actively in France and that the number of patients infected with them has increased from about 500 per day in early January to more than 2,000 patients per day today.
On Wednesday, France reported nearly 27,000 new confirmed Covid-19 cases in the biggest one-day jump since mid-November when France was in its second lockdown.
Portugal’s parliament has meanwhile extended a nationwide lockdown until mid-February, as Prime Minister Antonio Costa accepted blame for the world’s worst coronavirus surge, with hospitals on the verge of being overrun.
With 10mn people, Portugal reported a record 303 Covid-19 deaths and 16,432 new cases yesterday, and now has the world’s highest per capita seven-day averages of both new cases and deaths.
Costa told TVI broadcaster overnight the situation was “not bad, but terrible ... and we’ll face this worst moment for a few more weeks”.
The new lockdown, which came into force on January 15 for the first time since the initial wave of the pandemic, will last at least until February 14.
Denmark will extend its current coronavirus restrictions by three weeks in order to curb the spread of a more contagious coronavirus variant first registered in Britain, the prime minister said yesterday.
The Nordic country has seen a decline in new coronavirus infections and hospitalisations this month, after a drastic increase in December.
However, the number of people infected with the B.1.1.7. variant, which has spread from Britain across Europe, is still on the rise in Denmark.
“The new mutation is spreading even with the current widespread restrictions,” Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told a news conference.
The new British variant last week accounted for 13.5% of total new cases, up from 2% a month ago, official data showed.
Italy reported 492 coronavirus-related deaths yesterday, up from 467 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 14,372 from 15,204.
Italy has now registered 87,381 deaths linked to Covid-19 since last February, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the sixth-highest in the world.
The country has reported 2.516mn cases to date.
Sweden, which has spurned a lockdown throughout the pandemic, registered 4,085 new coronavirus cases yesterday, Health Agency statistics showed.
The country of 10mn inhabitants registered 95 new deaths, taking the total to 11,520.
Hungary extended yesterday a coronavirus state of emergency for 90 days and partial lockdown measures until March 1, and said it would issue a decree licensing any vaccine already used on 1mn people.
The measures were brought in as part of a state of emergency in place since November 11.
“The protection measures have been extended until March 1,” government spokesman Gergely Gulyas told a press briefing.
Hungary reported yesterday 93 new deaths from Covid-19, bringing the country’s overall death toll to 12,291, while the number of coronavirus patients in hospitals fell to 3,669, with 255 on ventilators.
Mexico’s health ministry on Wednesday reported 17,944 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection and 1,623 additional fatalities.
The country’s total cases were 1,806,849 with overall deaths at 153,639.
Colombia will restrict flights to and from Brazil for a month to prevent the spread of a new strain of the coronavirus circulating there, President Ivan Duque said on Wednesday.
Monitoring at the border between Brazil, Latin America’s largest country, and Colombia will also be increased, the president said.
“As a preventative measure, for a period of 30 days while all observations are carried out, restrictive measures will be taken on flights from Colombia to Brazil and from Brazil to Colombia,” Duque said.
Colombia has reported more than 2mn coronavirus infections, as well as 52,523 deaths from Covid-19
Brazil registered 1,283 new Covid-19 deaths, and 63,520 additional coronavirus cases, the health ministry said on Wednesday.
Brazil, home to the world’s second highest number of coronavirus deaths after the United States, has registered over 220,000 deaths, and nearly 9mn cases since the start of the pandemic, the health ministry data show.
Following the continuous rise in coronavirus cases, the government of Pakistan’s Punjab province has imposed a smart lockdown in four more cities of the province.
Yesterday 591 more people tested positive for the virus in the province, while 15 people lost their lives to the novel virus.
Punjab has so far reported 155,805 cases and 4,661 deaths.
The district administration has decided to impose a smart lockdown in 16 areas of Lahore, three in Hafizabad, and one in Gujrat and Gujranwala respectively.
SELF-EXAMINATION: Schoolchildren in a classroom at South Boston Catholic Academy in Boston, Massachusetts, US, swab and test themselves yesterday for Covid-19.
