Two more additional cases of the U.K. variant of COVID in Louisiana were confirmed by the CDC this week bringing the total to five. State Health Officer Dr. Joe Kanter said the cases are in the greater New Orleans and Lafayette areas of the state. Kanter said don’t be misled that it’s only five confirmed cases…
“So, we know that when we do identify cases like this, that’s it’s a tip of the iceberg scenario, there’s much more out there, no doubt than we’re able to identify,” said Kanter.
The CDC said the UK variant, which is more contagious and deadly, will be the dominant strain by mid-March in the U-S. Kanter said there are 20 additional cases from Louisiana pending confirmation for the UK variant at the CDC.
“The CDC is now getting so many of these pending confirmation requests from states that they’re not able to keep up with it and they’ve indicated to us they might not be sequencing all of these suspected cases. That’s a marker for how widespread the variant is becoming,” said Kanter.
Kanter said with the UK strain spreading rapidly it looks as if the state will experience another surge before the vaccine is able to help us reach herd immunity. He said we must be extremely diligent now with mitigation to avoid the worst.
“This variant is more transmissible it’s possibly more virulent. The UK has certainly found that it is putting more people per capita in hospitals than their previous surges did. So, this is likely what’s going to come ahead for us,” said Kanter.
Kanter said most likely the reason we are seeing cases confirmed in Regions 1 and 5 is that they have labs with the ability to detect variants and that does not mean it’s not in other areas of the state.
Comments