JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The new COVID-19 strain is making its way to our back door.
“That’s what happens with viruses, [it] can be extremely dangerous for us because of the fact that they are smart and they can mutate," said Assistant Chief Medical Officer at UF Health Jacksonville, Chirag Patel.
To understand how fast viruses spread Dr. Patel shares this analogy.
“Think about a bag of marbles if you take off those marbles and put a drop of red paint on it and drop it into the rest in the bag and you shake the bag up and take a look at all the marbles you’ll see that red paint has been transmitted to one marble to another," said Dr. Patel.
So it wasn’t a surprise for Dr. Patel to find out the strain was in the U.S.
“Just like when this started back in February it traveled from China to other countries and eventually made its way here. The new mutated strain is going to do the same thing," said Dr. Patel.
Dr. Patel says while COVID-19 has mutated, the new strain is not more deadly.
“It does not make you any sicker, it is not more likely to kill you, there are no variant symptoms from the current strain it’s just mutated and changed its genetic makeup to make it more transmissible," said Dr. Patel.
The new strain is 70% more contagious. Dr. Patel says UF Health is aiming by the end of the month to have a lab facility to sequence locally so it can be detected.
For now, they will be sending 50 random samples from the last seven days to Gainesville to determine if the new strain made it to Duval county.
“The concern though is because of the fact that it’s more transmissible. That means more people are going to pick it up and the higher number of COVID-19 cases you have means that our death toll projections will also go up equivalently," said Dr. Patel.
Dr. Patel says doing your part in staying safe is important.