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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont made the announcement on Monday afternoon, Feb. 15, noting the person was transferred from Connecticut to a hospital in New York after the diagnosis.
The South African variant, like the highly contagious United Kingdom strain, contains a mutation called N501Y which is believed to make it more contagious than older variants.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, appearing Sunday, Feb. 14 on NBC's "Meet the Press," warned that new data on the South African variant is "sobering" and that the variant
"It evades the protection from some of the monoclonal antibodies," Fauci said, "and it diminishes somewhat the capability and the effectiveness of the vaccine to block it. It doesn’t eliminate it, but it diminishes it by multiple fold."
Cases of the UK strain have soared across the nation since the beginning of the new year, with the number now around 1,000 cases, including 70 in New York, 42 in Connecticut, and 36 in New Jersey.
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