{"id":117812,"date":"2021-04-08T15:15:52","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T07:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=117812"},"modified":"2021-04-08T15:15:54","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T07:15:54","slug":"covid-19-uk-variant-is-now-most-common-strain-in-united-states-cdc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=117812","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19: UK variant is now most common strain in United States &#8211; CDC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img src=\"https:\/\/cdn.wionews.com\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/story_page\/public\/2021\/01\/28\/180396-coronavirus-in-usa.jpg?itok=YAji6wxO\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>WASHINGTON, April 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212;\u00a0The highly contagious variant of\u00a0COVID-19\u00a0first discovered in the United Kingdom has become the most common strain of the virus in the United States as cases continue to climb, a top US\u00a0health official said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The strain, known as B117, was identified in Britain last fall and has since been detected in 52 jurisdictions in the United States, US&nbsp;Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr&nbsp;Rochelle Walensky told reporters at a White House briefing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>US&nbsp;public health officials have urged Americans to get vaccinated as soon as possible in part to prevent new variants of the novel coronavirus from spreading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The United States has also detected cases of a variant first discovered in South Africa that is thought to be resistant to some&nbsp;COVID-19&nbsp;vaccines and treatments. That strain has been found in 36 US jurisdictions, according to federal data last updated on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The United States is administering about 3 million&nbsp;COVID-19&nbsp;vaccine doses per day on average over the past week, up 8 per cent&nbsp;over the previous seven-day average, Walensky said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Vaccine supply has increased significantly in the United States in recent weeks as Johnson &amp; Johnson has begun making millions of doses of its recently authorised&nbsp;shots. Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have also recently boosted their vaccine production capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>US&nbsp;President Joe Biden has doubled his goal for&nbsp;shots&nbsp;administered in his first 100 days in office from 100 million to 200 million and urged states to begin giving&nbsp;shots&nbsp;to all adults by mid-April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still, daily US&nbsp;cases of novel coronavirus are averaging 63,000 over the past seven days, up 2.3 per cent&nbsp;from the previous seven-day average, Walensky said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Walensky said that the CDC has identified a number of&nbsp;COVID-19&nbsp;outbreaks tied to youth sporting events and that communities experiencing high case counts should avoid holding such events. Testing should also happen twice a week, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>White House\u00a0COVID-19\u00a0adviser Andy Slavitt also told reporters that the US\u00a0government is expanding its community health centre program, which it set up in recent weeks to help get vaccines into underserved communities. &#8212; NNN-AGENCIES<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON, April 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212;\u00a0The highly contagious variant of\u00a0COVID-19\u00a0first discovered in the United Kingdom has become the most common strain of the virus in the United States as cases continue to climb, a top US\u00a0health official said. The strain, known as B117, was identified in Britain last fall and has since been detected in 52 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117812"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117812\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}