The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that the coronavirus variant discovered in Brazil has become the second most dominant strain of the virus in the United States.
Per The Washington Post, the CDC data showed that the P.1 variant from Brazil is the No. 2 strain in the U.S.
- “At least 434 people in the United States have been infected with the variant, which has devastated Brazil, with the largest number of cases found in Massachusetts, Illinois and Florida,” according to The Washington Post.
Context for COVID-19 variants
According to the CDC, the “variants have mutations in the virus genome that alter the characteristics and cause the virus to act differently in ways that are significant to public health (e.g., causes more severe disease, spreads more easily between humans, requires different treatments, changes the effectiveness of current vaccines).”
As I wrote for the Deseret News, the coronavirus strain discovered in the United Kingdom became the most dominant strain of the virus in the U.S. earlier this week.
- “Based on our most recent estimates from CDC surveillance, the B.1.1.7 variant is now the most common lineage circulating in the United States,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, New York magazine reports.
COVID-19 vaccine and Brazil variant
Reuters reports that the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine has been shown to stop the Brazil variant, according to new research.
“Blood taken from people who had been given the vaccine neutralized an engineered version of the virus that contained the same mutations carried on the spike portion of the highly contagious P.1 variant first identified in Brazil,” per Reuters.
Moderna and Pfizer use similar mRNA technology for their vaccines, so there’s a chance the Moderna vaccine would neutralize the Brazil variant in the same way.