The first case of the P. 1 variant of COVID-19 detected in Brazil was shown in Massachusetts, the state Department of Public Health announced Tuesday.
The P. 1 variant, which was first discovered in the city of Manaus, Brazil, is one of many strains of the virus that worry public fitness officials because of its potential contagion. The others are variant B. 1. 1. 7, discovered in the United Kingdom, and B. 1. 351, from South Africa.
Dr. William Hanage, Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the T. H. Harvard. Chan School of Public Health, says less is known about the P. 1 variant than about the other two, but the knowledge “that it is more capable of reinfecting people, more transmissible, or a mixture of these. “
“No mix like this is good,” he added. We still want to vaccinate more people as temporarily as possible to prevent it from taking hold, because if it does, it means there will be more people infected.
The user inflamed with the Brazil strain in Massachusetts is a woman in her thirties from Barnstable County. The DPH said he tested positive last February and there is no data on his condition or whether he had recently traveled. The branch said it reported the woman’s findings through the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national surveillance system. U. S.
Lately 213 have been shown in Massachusetts with the British variant of the coronavirus and 6 with the South African variant.
Epidemiologists said those numbers likely make up a small fraction of the actual cases in the state involving variants of more contagious viruses.
Lately there is a 10- to 14-day delay between a positive user and full confirmation that this is a new strain of coronavirus, according to Dr. David Hamer, a professor of global medicine and fitness at Boston University.
“We want a national surveillance formula that is preferably coordinated through the CDC, that can track the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in other parts of the country and use that knowledge and then tell the government of public fitness and vaccine manufacturers which strains are maximum. “And that we want to target vaccines,” he said.
Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, said there are considerations that a variant like P. 1 could undo recent progress as more people get vaccinated.
“We want to vaccinate as temporarily as possible,” Doron said. More viruses mean more mutations. Therefore, we have to reduce the numbers with each and every strategy we have: mask, walk away, avoid crowds, stay home in case of illness, get vaccinated when it’s your turn. And if we can hold this a little longer, we can control even more contagious variants. “
Hanage said the three vaccines available lately, from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson,
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines “produced incredible immunity,” Hanage said. Johnson’s vaccine
“So I’m sure of myself about vaccines,” Hanage said.
Mark Herz is a journalist and editor of GBH News. Mark began his love affair with journalism in his senior year at Yale, where he majored in linguistics. He then went to Columbia to earn an M. S. at the Graduate School of Journalism, where he reported from scratch on Sept. 11.
Originally from Connecticut, he was also a reporter and public radio host for a time in northern Arizona. Mark won state, regional and national awards for his reporting and interviews. In 2011, he won a national Edward R. Murrow Award for his series. “Surveillance of the Mentally Ill”.
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