A South African coronavirus variant "is in fact here" and there has likely been community spread of the strain, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control, said Friday.
"What's happened over the last week or so is that we've really scaled up the surveillance and the sequencing in this country," Walensky said on NBC's "Today." "I think we were always concerned that we had it here and we hadn't yet detected it, and now we have evidence of these two cases in South Carolina that it is in fact here."
It's hard to know at this point how widespread the new variance may be, said Walensky, but she said the fact that the two patients in South Carolina didn't know each other and had not traveled to South Africa, leads to the likelihood that there is community spread of the strain.
However, news from Novavax suggesting that vaccines that have been approved are less effective against the new variant must be unpacked, she said.
"When viruses mutate and they develop strains and dominant strains they usually do so for some advantage to the virus," said Walensky. "That may come in the tune of our vaccines not working as well."
She added that even a vaccine with 50-60% efficacy, compared to the ratings on the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine ratings in the 90s, is still considered a strong tool to fight the pandemic, but people may still need a booster shot as time goes by.
Meanwhile, the CDC guidelines have recommended that teachers get vaccinated, and Walensky said they should be "early in the queue" to get shots.
However, mitigation efforts must continue to open schools safety as well, including masking, distancing, and smaller class sizes, she said.
Walensky also addressed the ongoing debate about whether people should be wearing two masks in the light of new strains.
"Certainly, N95 masks offer the best filtration, but in fact, they're very hard to tolerate for long periods of time," she said. "I think the difference between a two-layer cloth mask and an N95 is relatively small compared to the difference between getting 41% of the American population masked."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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