A first case of the British variant of Covid-19 has been identified in the territory of the United States.
"The Colorado State Laboratory was the first in the country" to identify this "B.1.1.7 variant" discovered in the United Kingdom, Colorado Governor Jared Polis announced Tuesday (December 29th).
The patient carrying the variant, considered to be more contagious than the original strain, is a young man in his twenties "who is currently in isolation in Elbert County and has not traveled," the services said in their press release. of the governor.
The health authorities have opened an investigation but no contact case has been identified for the moment.
A British variant found in several countries
According to studies, this mutation is particularly contagious, which prompted the British authorities to sound the alarm last week, but there is no evidence at this stage that it leads to more serious forms of Covid-19.
The British variant has already been found in several countries, such as Portugal, France, Jordan, South Korea and Chile.
On the North American continent, the British mutation had already been identified in Canada last weekend.
The United States, which has the highest death toll from Covid-19 in the world, is currently experiencing a dramatic rebound in the epidemic, with regularly more than 200,000 confirmed cases and more than 3,000 deaths per day, for about three weeks.
With AFP
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