There’s A New Delta Plus COVID Variant- Will It Come To New York?

As cases of COVID-19 surge across the United States due to the highly contagious delta variant, there is now a new version of that mutation called the delta plus. What is Delta Plus? Is it coming to New York soon?

According to Fox News, Delta Plus is causing concern among many health care professionals across the world. The delta plus variant is similar to the delta variant, but of course different:

Unlike delta, this sub-strain has a spike protein mutation called K417N; these spike proteins latch onto human cells with the external bumps that are found on the virus"

The Washington Post reports South Korea’s Disease Control and Prevention Agency recorded at the time of this article at least two cases of the new coronavirus delta-plus variant. Experts believe Delta Plus to be more transmissible than the original delta variant.

It has been detected in several countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States and India."

In the United Kingdom, at least 39 confirmed cases of the delta-plus variant have been found in the country along with six probable ones. Currently, Delta-plus accounts for a tiny fraction of COVID cases in the US.

Though news of coronavirus variants (alpha, beta, delta, lambda and so on) can be overwhelming, not every variant is cause for more concern than the original coronavirus."

Dr. Anthony Fauci is quoted on CNET saying as long as the coronavirus is around and a good portion of the population is unvaccinated, we should be concerned because the virus will continue to mutate.

You can read more, and up to date info, from the CDC online here.