About 735 cases of a coronavirus variant that emerged in New York City in November have now been identified in the U.S., including 585 in the last two weeks, a federal health official said.
The mutation has traveled extensively through the metropolitan New York region, and individual cases have also been found in 14 other states, including Texas, Wyoming and Maryland, according to Gregory Armstrong, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advanced Molecular Detection Program.
The variant, known scientifically as B.1.526, likely started off in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, Anthony Fauci, a top medical adviser to President Joe Biden, said in a Monday news briefing. It is one of five concerning variants now being tracked nationally by health officials.
The vast majority of cases involving the New York variant have been confirmed in the New York and New Jersey area, Armstrong said in a Monday interview. Though the variant could be more transmissible than the original Covid-19 strain, it is “relatively limited geographically right now,” he said.
Recent research suggests B.1.526 needs to be closely watched “for its ability to evade both monoclonal antibody and, to a certain extent, the vaccine-induced antibody,” said Fauci, who also heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“It’s something we take very, very seriously,” Fauci said.
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