The first known US case of a highly infectious coronavirus variant was detected in Colorado on Tuesday as President-elect Joe Biden warned it could take years for most Americans to be vaccinated for the virus at current distribution rates. "The effort to distribute and administer the vaccine is not progressing as it should," Biden said in Wilmington, Delaware. Shortly after Biden's remarks, Colorado's Governor Jared Polis said his state had discovered a case of the highly infectious coronavirus variant B.1.1.7 first detected in Britain. Scientists there believe the variant is more contagious than other previously identified strains of the SAR-CoV-2 variant. Dr Atul Gawande, a member of Biden's COVID-19 advisory board, told CBS News the transition team still did not have all the information it needed to understand the vaccine distribution bottlenecks.

Source: dna December 30, 2020 01:30 UTC