‘UK strain accounts for 30 per cent of US cases’

Visitors view the Walt Disney and World War II exhibits at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. The red tier allows museums to open indoor facilities at 25 per cent capacity. Pic/AFP

The highly contagious Coronavirus variant first identified in Britain likely accounts for up to 30 per cent of the confirmed cases in the US, Anthony Fauci, the country's top infectious disease expert, said. The variant, called B.1.1.7, has been reported in at least 94 countries and detected in 50 jurisdictions in the US, Fauci said on Friday during a White House briefing on the pandemic.

He added that the numbers are likely growing. Fauci said the B.1.1.7 variant is 50 per cent more transmissible and likely to cause a more severe infection. "We're at a position right now where we have a plateauing at around 53,000 cases per day," he said.

"The concern is that throughout the country there are a number of states, cities, regions that are pulling back on some of the mitigation methods that we've been talking about: the withdrawal of mask mandates, the pulling back to essentially non-public health measures being implemented."

Fauci urged Americans to get vaccinated as quickly as possible to avoid variants spread. A total of 5,795 infection cases of Coronavirus variants have been reported across the country so far, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Zoos and scientists aim to curb people giving the Coronavirus to animals
Around the world, many scientists and veterinarians are now racing to protect animals from the Coronavirus, often using the same playbook for minimising disease spread among people: That includes social distancing, health checks and, for some zoo animals, a vaccine. Karen, a 28-year-old orangutan, became the first ape in the world to get a Coronavirus vaccine on January 26 at the San Diego Zoo. Karen has received two shots of a vaccine from Zoetis, a veterinary pharmaceutical company in New Jersey, and has shown no adverse reactions. Since then, nine other primates at the San Diego Zoo have been fully vaccinated.

12,30,18,895
TOTAL Number OF CORONAVIRUS

CASES IN THE WORLD

27,15,584
Number OF DEATHS WORLDWIDE

9,91,45,688
Number OF RECOVERED PATIENTS

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