Gov. Ralph Northam updates the state on COVID-19 at his Feb. 5 news conference.
UPDATED 4 P.M. FEB. 5
Gov. Ralph Northam said Friday the highly contagious South African variant of COVID-19 has shown up in a case in Virginia, identified by private laboratory Labcorp on Thursday.
The sample came from an adult in Eastern Virginia, according to the Virginia Department of Health, which said it was “investigating this case and assessing the person’s travel history.” While the South African variant is associated with increased person-to-person transmission, there is no evidence that it causes more severe disease, VDH said in a news release issued Friday.
In recent studies, available vaccines have been shown to be less effective against the South African variant, which has spread quickly across South Africa and other nations, although the U.S. has seen only a few cases so far, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the CDC’s most recent update Thursday, there are only five cases reported in the U.S, in Maryland and South Carolina.
