The variant was first detected in the United States on December 30 in Colorado. Rhode Island has only conducted 223 DNA sequencing tests. And, while the new variants are spreading across the country, Governor Gina Raimondo on Friday opened bars and reduced restrictions on restaurants ahead of the St. Valentine’s holiday.
Rhode Island's response to the pandemic is arguably the worst of any state in America.
The state is ranked third in the United States for cases per capita, fourth for deaths per capita, and 50th in the country for utilization of vaccines.“I think opening up bars — if a physician were to do that, that almost feels like malpractice to me. In the face of what we're seeing, you know-- this is public policy malpractice until we know this disease is under control,” said Dr. Michael Fine, former Rhode Island Director of Health.
“We can expect that our existing social distancing and masking approaches will work considerably less in the face of a fast spreading variant,” said Fine.
“I was expecting this [spread of the variant] to happen and had assumed that the variant were already circulating two or three weeks ago. I think we're going to unfortunately see the number of new cases start to rise followed two or three weeks later by the number of hospitalizations and then deaths,” added Fine.
“I think we're getting ready for our third peak. Dr. Osterholm in Minnesota suggests the next 13 or 14 weeks are going to be our hardest weeks," he added. "Yet, I can't confirm whether that's true or not."
“A lot depends on how fast people get vaccinated but if we don't burn rubber and get half the state vaccinated in a few weeks, I think he's probably right,” said Fine.
Michael Osterholm served on President Joe Biden’s COVID Task Force and is voicing great pessimism about the impact of the variants that are now emerging in Rhode Island.
South African Variant Hits Massachusetts
On Tuesday, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) announced the first case of the B.1.351 COVID-19 variant identified in the Commonwealth. Genetic sequencing completed at the Broad Institute on behalf of DPH has confirmed the variant, which was originally identified in South Africa.
The case is a female in her 20s who resides in Middlesex County; she has had no reported travel.
The B.1.351 variant is known to spread easily. The Massachusetts State Public Health Laboratory is working in collaboration with many healthcare and academic partners to quickly identify variants of concern by sequencing a subset of positive samples.
Two other variants of concern are the B.1.1.7 originally found in the United Kingdom, and the P.1 variant, which was originally detected in Brazil. Currently, there are 34 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant in Massachusetts; there are no confirmed cases of the P.1.
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