More Contagious COVID Variant Confirmed in 3rd State

And then there were three states (that we know of). Florida on Thursday became the third state to say it has identified a case of the new B117 strain of coronavirus. The more contagious variant was found to have infected a Martin County man in his 20s who has no history of recent travel, reports NPR, which notes those details align with those of the cases found in Colorado and California thus far—all patients are men who have not left the US recently. The Guardian reports genome sequencing is being conducted on some 2 million US tests to get a sense of how long the variant has been in the US and how widespread it is. Results are expected within days. The paper suggests there is "a small possibility that it began in the US, not the UK, or elsewhere altogether." (More coronavirus stories.)