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. WASHINGTON The nation dramatically stepped up its surveillance for coronavirus variants in recent weeks, but experts say there s much further to go if the Washington region and the rest of the country wants to stay ahead of new and potentially dangerous versions of the virus. Conducting the genetic sequencing to detect for variants is far more expensive, time-consuming and sophisticated than testing whether people have contracted the coronavirus, leading to a patchwork system where some states aggressively seek out variants and others lag behind. There are definitely states where they really champion this, said Duncan MacCannell, chief science officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention s Office of Advanced Molecular Detection. But, you know, there s also a lot of blanks (on the map), dark spots, places where we just don t have regular sequence data.
More transmissible U.K. variant is probably widely spread throughout the state
Health experts warn of COVID variants making their way across the world and into Virginia
and last updated 2021-04-06 09:21:00-04
RICHMOND, Va. A VCU Infectious Disease Epidemiologist predicts the more transmissible U.K. variant known as B117, will dominate the country by the end of the month and is already widely spread throughout Virginia. We re in a footrace, between the vaccine and the virus variant, said Dr. Richard Wenzel, infectious disease epidemiologist with VCU.
Wenzel estimated the B.1.1.7 variant already made-up 50% of infections now.
In Virginia, Wenzel said the first case was identified in late January, and by early March there were 20 known cases across the state.