New COVID-19 strain more than twice as contagious as before

Jacksonville, FL. — A COVID-19 strain that’s more than twice as contagious as before has been reported in Colorado, according to UF Health epidemiologist Chad Neilsen.

Meanwhile, doctors in Jacksonville are working to find out if the new strain is in Duval County.

Neilsen says Duval County reached a 22 percent positivity-rate on Monday.

Those numbers can be seen on the Florida Department of Health’s website.

As laboratories were closed across the state around Christmas, so that impacted the number of people getting tested, and when they got their test results back.

“It may already be here in Duval County, and maybe that’s why we’re accounting for this explosion of cases over the weekend,” Neilsen said.

Neilsen is urging the public to stay home this New Year’s Eve.

“Just do a quiet goodbye to 2020 because this has got the potential to really accelerate quickly,” he added.

And that’s exactly what Bhavik Desai and Derek Ro plan to do tomorrow night.

“I lost my senior year of college to this, it’s like whatever, life goes on, you can make up for those things later,” Desai said.

Action News Jax told them about the new strain; this was Derek Ro’s first time hearing about it.

“I know a lot of people who passed away from the original COVID, so to hear that this is even more contagious, definitely something that, if we haven’t already been cautious about, we should definitely be a lot more cautious,” Ro said.

Neilsen says the new strain isn’t anymore deadly than what we’ve already been experiencing, but it should still be taken seriously.

“Although contagiousness does not relate to severity of illness, the fact that it can spread that much easier does mean it could reach people who maybe are not vaccinated or are more susceptible to getting it,” Neilsen added.

“We’re all tired of this phase in our lies, it’s been a long year already,” Desai said, adding that they can’t wait to say goodbye to 2020, and hello to a new year which they’re hoping will bring back health and normalcy.

“If we could just kind of come together as a community and decide to finally let this thing die down, however that may be, that would be the best course of action, because everyone’s tired of it, we all want to go back to our normal lives,” Ro said.

Neilsen says UF Health will be studying the virus next week to see if the new strain is already in Duval County.

Cox Media Group