The Marquette County Health Department says it is keeping a close eye on the new coronavirus variant, which was detected for the first time over the weekend in downtstate Washtenaw County.
The B-1-1-7 variant first appeared in Great Britain and appears to spread more quickly, although is not more deadly in of itself. But it could be as much as 70-percent more transmissable, which the state says is “concerning”.
Bob Lorinsor is the medical director for several Centeral and Western U-P health departments. He says that the Upper Peninsula participates routinely in the state’s genomic surveillance program, even before we knew of the variant. He says that multiple sites send in ten samples per week, and so far, the variant has not been detected anywhere in the U.P.
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