JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The new strain of COVID-19 that continues to spread through the United Kingdom, leading to a slew of shutdowns and bans on travel to the country, is thought to spread more easily. Local health experts said the strain is concerning, but is not reason for alarm.
On Saturday, Britain's prime minister acknowledged the new strain as strict lockdown measures were enacted in the country.
"Viruses mutate, and this was totally expected. We know that this COVID-19 virus has mutated several times," said Chad Neilsen, Director of Infection Prevention at UF Health Jacksonville. "We've been tracking its mutations, really, since the very beginning."
Neilsen said the concern does not lie in the fact that the virus has mutated, but in the way the virus has become more contagious because of that mutation.
"And that's something that they're still the scientists are still trying to unpack," Neilsen added. "There's still a lot more research to be done on it. And they're doing it very quickly."
With hundreds of thousands of doses of both the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines rolling out across the United States, it also remains to be seen how this new strain will interact with the types of vaccine that have been developed.
According to Neilsen, it is still up in the air whether the vaccines as they are currently formulated will be fully effective against the new strain. So far, the vaccines have not yet been shown to be ineffective.
"We don't know yet," Neilsen said. "Any new variation to a virus in terms of its genetic variation could produce something that the vaccine does no longer protect against. We don't have that evidence yet. This new strain is not being shown to be able to go around the vaccine."
A key difference, Neilsen said, is that in the United Kingdom, every sample of a positive COVID-19 test is genetically sequenced, which provides more information about that specific strain.
Because the same is not done in the United States, individuals may not even realize if they have contracted the new strain.
"They're able to track the genetic differences a lot better than we are right now," Neilsen said. "It's probably already in the States. Only now is UK travel starting to be limited to and from."