Health officials in the US state of Florida announced on Saturday that a resident of Martin County, on the state’s Treasure Coast, who was found to be infected with a new and more contagious COVID-19 strain first discovered in the UK, is now out of quarantine, according to Fox News.
On Thursday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during a random sampling of coronavirus tests in Florida found a 23-year-old man to be infected with the UK variant of the virus.
Is is not yet known how the man contracted the disease. According to health officials, the patient was “very cooperative,” following COVID-19 protocols, adding that he had not traveled outside the United States in weeks prior to his diagnosis.
As mass vaccination against COVID-19 is underway across the US, health experts have expressed concern that current vaccines will not be effective if the virus mutates. The Florida Department of Health, however, announced that “Experts anticipate little to no impact on the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine.”
At this time, experts anticipate little to no impact on the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine. For updates on the state's vaccination efforts, text FLCOVID19 to 888777
— Florida Dept. Health (@HealthyFla) January 1, 2021
On Tuesday, the US state of Colorado was the first to confirm an infection case with the UK mutation of the coronavirus in the United States. A Colorado patient also was described as a man in his 20s with no travel history. The state later confirmed a second case.
California is the second US state to discover a case of the mutated virus on Wednesday.
The CDC said on Wednesday that the new COVID-19 strain has likely been transmitting person-to-person in the US prior to the first known case registered in Colorado. As every new case of the mutated COVID-19 virus has no travel history, the agency has concluded that the new variant has been circulating undetected in the country for an undetermined period of time.
