Crossing borders: India’s COVID strain emerges in US and 18 other countries

While the new COVID-19 variant in India has wreaked havoc across the country, the United States has seen the “double mutant” virus gripping a stronger hold in the star-spangled country, including the San Francisco Bay Area. The deadly virus variant has also shown up in at least 18 other countries. 

The mutated version of the virus was first detected in the Bay Area by a team from the Clinical Virology Laboratory of Stanford after testing various samples gathered from the health care facilities for viral genetic sequences. 

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The public health department of California’s Santa Clara expressed concern over the tangible increase in the number of infections in the area even though the United States has been in a strong inoculation drive. 

The department’s director Dr Sara Cody said in a statement, “The numbers are picking up and right now we’re in a race between the variants and the vaccine,” and further urged the people of Santa Clara to get vaccinated to avoid any worse situations. 

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While India continues to record more than 350,000 new COVID cases on a daily basis since the past few weeks, the United States, under President Joe Biden, has deployed multiple India-bound aircrafts carrying aid and medical supplies.

The recent COVID figures in India are likely to be reason enough for health care alarm in the United States as India, recorded 392,488 cases of coronavirus, taking the COVID-19 tally of the nation to 19,557,457. A total of 3,689 people died due to the disease on Saturday. The COVID-19 death toll has now climbed to 215,542.