First Reported U.S. Case Of Virus Variant Found In Colorado

DENVER >> The first reported U.S. case of the COVID-19 variant that's been seen in the United Kingdom has been discovered in Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis announced Tuesday, adding urgency to efforts to vaccinate Americans.

The variant was found in a man in his 20s who is in isolation southeast of Denver in Elbert County and has no travel history, state health officials said.

Elbert County is a mainly rural area of rolling plains at the far edge of the Denver metro area that includes a portion of Interstate 70, the state's main east-west highway.

Colorado Politics reported there is a second suspected case of the variant in the state according to Dwayne Smith, director of public health for Elbert County. Both of the people were working in the Elbert County community of Simla. Neither of them are residents of that county - expanding the possibility of the variant's spread throughout the state.

The Colorado State Laboratory confirmed the virus variant and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was notified.

Scientists in the U.K. believe the variant is more contagious than previously identified strains. The vaccines being given now are thought to be effective against the variant, Colorado health officials said in a news release.

For the moment, the variant is likely still rare in the U.S., but the lack of travel history in the first case means it is spreading, probably seeded by travelers from Britain in November or December, said scientist Trevor Bedford, who studies the spread of COVID-19 at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

"Now I'm worried there will be another spring wave due to the variant," Bedford said. "It's a race with the vaccine, but now the virus has just gotten a little bit faster."

Public health officials are investigating other potential cases and performing contact tracing to determine the spread of the variant throughout the state.

"There is a lot we don't know about this new COVID-19 variant, but scientists in the United Kingdom are warning the world that it is significantly more contagious. The health and safety of Coloradans is our top priority, and we will closely monitor this case, as well as all COVID-19 indicators, very closely," Polis said.

Polis and state health officials are expected hold a news conference Wednesday.

The discovery of the new variant led the CDC to issue new rules on Christmas Day for travelers arriving to the U.S. from the U.K., requiring they show proof of a negative COVID-19 test.

The U.K. variant, known as B.1.1.7, also has been found in Canada, Italy, India and the United Arab Emirates.

South Africa also has discovered a highly contagious COVID-19 variant that is driving the country's latest spike of confirmed cases, hospitalizations and deaths. The variant, known as 501.V2, is dominant among the newly confirmed infections in South Africa, according to health officials and scientists leading the country's virus strategy.

Biden criticizes rollout

Meanwhile, President-elect Joe Biden criticized the Trump administration Tuesday for the pace of distributing COVID-19 vaccines and predicted that "things will get worse before they get better" when it comes to the pandemic.

"We need to be honest - the next few weeks and months are going to be very tough, very tough for our nation. Maybe the toughest during this entire pandemic," Biden said during remarks in Wilmington, Delaware on Tuesday.

His comments come as the coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 336,000 Americans, with experts warning holiday travel and gatherings could precipitate yet another spike in virus cases even as the virus has already been surging in states nationwide.

Earlier this month, Trump administration officials said they planned to have 20 million doses of the vaccine distributed by the end of the year. But according to data provided by the CDC, just more than 11.4 million doses have been distributed and only 2.1 million people have received their first dose.

At the current pace, Biden said, "it's gonna take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people."

President Donald Trump deflected Biden's critique. "It is up to the States to distribute the vaccines once brought to the designated areas by the Federal Government," he tweeted Tuesday. "We have not only developed the vaccines, including putting up money to move the process along quickly, but gotten them to the states."

Biden, who takes office Jan. 20, said he has directed his team to prepare a "much more aggressive effort, with more federal involvement and leadership, to get things back on track."

Russian numbers

In Russia, after months of questions over the true scale of the coronavirus pandemic there and the efficacy of a Russian-developed vaccine, the state statistical agency in Moscow has announced new figures indicating that the death toll from COVID-19 is more than three times as high as officially reported.

The new data, issued Monday by the state statistics agency Rosstat, would raise Russia from eighth to third in a ranking of countries by the number of deaths from the pandemic.

But the release of the data received little coverage on state media.

The government, ignoring the new figures from the statistics agency, has left unchanged its low COVID-19 death count.

The official death count is based on a narrow definition of who has died from the virus and has frequently diverged from the real number reflected in figures issued by the statistics agency.

Russia has reported more than 3 million cases of infection, making it the world's fourth-hardest-hit country, but only 55,827 deaths, fewer than in seven other countries. A demographer at a government agency who questioned the official fatality figures was fired over the summer.

The Associated Press and The New York Times contributed to this report.