(Daily Mail) – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is telling hospitals to start testing for the new mutant strain of COVID that has been identified in the UK, Europe, and Australia so that the US can ‘isolate it immediately’.
Speaking on a call with reporters on Tuesday, Cuomo said he’d told hospital systems across the state to start performing the ‘complex’ test that identifies the strain. The new mutant strain is said to be 70 percent more infectious than what has been seen before. It has sent the UK into panic mode and has prompted more than 40 countries to cut off flights from Britain.
No cases of it have been identified in the US yet but Dr. Anthony Fauci and other science experts say it is only a matter of time and is probably already here. Cuomo agreed with them on Tuesday and said he wanted to weed it out. ‘Dr. Fauci said something that is frightening.
He thinks the variant is already here. I’ve asked hospitals all across our state to test for the variant specifically,’ Cuomo said. ‘If it’s here, we want to know it and isolate it immediately. Let’s learn from the spring. ‘Fauci says he thinks it’s here. If it’s here, where? Where is it?’ New York’s COVID numbers are the third-best in the country after Hawaii and Vermont. The statewide positivity rate is 5.89 percent and it varies by region; Mohawk Valley is higher than 8 percent but New York City is just over 4 percent. READ MORE
