The subject line on the email read: Extremely Important P.1 Variant Identified in Bay County. This is the first of this variant identified in Michigan to date, read the message, dated March 31 and sent from Melanie Perry, an epidemiologist at the Michigan health department, to Bay County health officials.
Believed to be about two times more contagious than earlier strains of COVID-19, the P.1 coronavirus variant originated in the Amazon in November 2020.
It s a concern not only because it s more contagious, but also because monoclonal antibody treatments are less effective in people with the P.1 variant, which has 17 unique mutations. The strain also is known to reinfect people who ve already had COVID-19, studies have shown.
Health officials are sounding the alarm as the easier to spread variants continue their spread across the state.
Health officials are sounding the alarm as the easier to spread variants continue their spread across the state.
This is the second new variant to be identified in the county since last week.
As COVID-19 cases rise, it is a race between vaccine and variant.
âAll three are highly transmissible. And they are complicating things around the world,â said Bay County Health Officer Joel Strasz.
In Michigan, things got more complicated with the state s first confirmed case of the Brazilian variant detected in Bay County.