Mutant super-infectious coronavirus variant ‘already in US’: Scientist 

Scientists have said that super-infectious British strain of coronavirus is probably already in the United States and could even have originated there.

The new strain - feared to be 70 per cent more transmissible and to spread more easily among children - has led to calls for the US to impose a travel ban on Britain, as dozens of countries including Canada have already done, reports Daily Mail. 

But Scott Gottlieb, a former head of the FDA, told CNBC that the new strain 'is already in the US' and that a travel ban would not keep it out. 

'As the virus continues to spread around the world, we're going to start to see more of these variants,' he warned. 

Jeremy Luban, a University of Massachusetts virologist, told the Washington Post that the new strain 'may have even started here' - suggesting it might have been detected in Britain first because the UK has a genome sequencing program hailed as the 'best in the world' compared to the 'sporadic' one in the US.  
 
'It may very well be here. It may have even started here. The sequencing in the US is so sporadic,' he said.  

New York governor Andrew Cuomo also said he believed the new strain had reached the US, while Dr Anthony Fauci said that 'you really need to assume it's here already'. 

'I would not be surprised at all if it's already here,' Fauci told Good Morning America - saying that compulsory testing might be needed to fly to the US but that banning travel completely would be a 'rather dramatic step'. 

Dr Shira Doron, an epidemiologist in Boston, told NBC10 that she 'can't imagine it wouldn't be' in the United States already. 'Would I expect to see that variance in the US? Of course. People are traveling all the time. I would expect to see that,' she said. 

Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Georgetown Center for Global Health Science and Security, said it would 'not shock me at all to find out' that the strain is already in the US. 

'I don't think a travel ban is going to be particularly helpful. We already have out-of-control transmission of all the variants that are circulating in the US here,' she said. 'It makes sense that it was detected first in the UK because they have probably the world's best surveillance program.'

A scientist on the UK's advisory panel, Calum Semple, warned on Monday that the new mutation was likely to become the dominant strain around the world - predicting that it would 'out-compete' other forms of the virus.  

The mutation has been blamed by UK politicians for a resurgence in cases in the south of England which seemed to defy a November lockdown. But other experts have played down concerns, saying the 70 per cent claim is unproven.  

Dr Anthony Fauci said on Monday that the general American public will likely begin receiving the Covid-19 vaccine by early spring. 

It contradicted a prediction by Joe Biden's nominee for US surgeon-general that the shot would not be available until mid-summer or early fall.

Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Health and Infectious Diseases, conceded that it would take several months before the vast majority of the country's population is immunized.

'I think people are getting a little confused about when they can expect [the vaccine]. If you start vaccinating parts of the general public in April, by the time you get to the end of August … that's when we should see an overwhelming majority,' Fauci told the Daily Beast.

'That's if you vaccinate very aggressively in May, June and July,' he added. 

Biden nominee Dr Vivek Murthy had said that 'it may be closer to mid-summer or early fall when this vaccine makes its way to the general population'. 

Fauci said on GMA today that he would be getting the Moderna vaccine, adding that 'I feel very good about it'.

'It's sort of a double positive - one, in general, I want to symbolize to people the importance that everyone gets vaccinated who can get vaccinated - but also, it's a good feeling of accomplishment because this [originated] in laboratories in my institute,' he said. 

Fauci, who said he hoped Biden would get more people to wear masks, also made a last-minute Christmas plea for people to minimize travel and hold small-scale gatherings - saying that 'we really do need to hang in there... we're in a precarious situation. The end is in sight.'  

Monday marked the second week of the Pfizer vaccine roll-out across the country, and the first round of shipments of the Moderna vaccine after it was given approval by US regulators. 

Millions of frontline healthcare workers, including those working in long-term care facilities, have been lined up to receive the first doses. 

At a briefing on Monday, UK scientists said the potential vulnerability of children 'might explain a significant proportion' of the overall rise in cases. In England's most recent national lockdown, schools stayed open while shops, bars and restaurants all closed. 

The coronavirus has long been seen as 'not as efficient in infecting children as it was in adults'. But scientists believe the new strain may have changed this.    

'There is a hint that it has a higher propensity to infect children,' said Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist at University College London and member of an advisory panel. 

'We haven't established any sort of causality on that, but we can see it in the data,' Ferguson said. 'We will need to gather more data to see how it behaves going forward.' 

He added: 'What we've seen is, during the lockdown in England we saw a general distribution of the virus towards children, and that was true in the variant and the non-variant, and it is what we would expect, given that we had locked down which reduced adult contact but schools were still open. 

'But what we've seen over the course of a five or six-week period is consistently the proportion of [cases] for the variant in under-15s was statistically significantly higher than the non-variant virus. We are still investigating the significance of that.'  

Another UK scientist, Professor Wendy Barclay of Imperial College London, said the new virus might 'put children on a more level playing field' compared to adults. 

The UK government believes the new variant may explain why cases kept rising in parts of England even during the November lockdown.

Since the lockdown ended, cases have risen again across the country - leading to tough new restrictions and this week's rush to shut down flights.   

Belgian virologist Marc van Ranst warned that 'this variant has already spread more than we think', telling Bloomberg that it was not 'completely fair' to slap travel bans on the UK simply because its advanced genome sequencing had detected the mutation first. 

Cuomo said on Monday that the new strain was 'another disaster waiting to happen' after New York was hit hard by the first wave of the pandemic in the spring.

'When you do not require flights from the UK to be tested, you are allowing thousands of UK passengers to arrive here every day,' Cuomo said. 'Based on New York's experience in the spring, I believe this new, highly contagious strain of Covid-19 is already here,' he added. 

Virgin Atlantic, British Airways and Delta Airlines have already agreed to test all passengers for Covid-19 prior to boarding UK flights for New York. 

The White House coronavirus task force is also considering a new rule that would require all passengers arriving from the UK to have a negative test within 72 hours of departure.  

Canada has already imposed a 72-hour ban on arrivals from the UK, making it one of more than 40 countries to have shut down travel from Britain.  

Outside the UK, cases of the new strain have already been identified in Denmark, Gibraltar, the Netherlands, Australia and Italy. 

Germany's RKI health institute said today it was highly likely that the mutation was already in the country, although it had not been detected yet. 

France, which closed its border to lorries on Sunday as well as cars and passenger transport, said there was no evidence so far that the strain was circulating there.