Experts: New Strain of Corona Spreads Rapidly in New York

American experts announced that they had discovered a new mutation of the emerging coronavirus (COVID-19), which is spreading at a rapid pace in New York City.

Two teams of experts from the California Institute of Technology and Columbia University in the  United States of America (USA) confirmed that the new strain, called B.1.526, was first discovered in samples collected in New York last November, indicating that it has spread widely in the city since then.

Up to mid-February, the proportion of new cases of the new strain among the total number of newly infected people with the Coronavirus in New York City was about 12% (according to the Columbia University team data) or 27% (according to the California Institute of Technology team).

Experts from Columbia University pointed out that the new strain is similar in some ways to the two mutations recently discovered in South Africa and Brazil, and is believed to be more capable of spreading.

On the other hand,   US President, Joe Biden, extended the period of validity of the state of emergency regime in the United States against the background of the Coronavirus pandemic that causes the "Covid-19" infection, which was first announced by his predecessor, Donald Trump.

Biden said, in a message to Congress on Wednesday, that he decided to extend the state of the emergency system to continue after March 1, 2021, stressing that this measure is "necessary."

Biden stated that the pandemic "still poses a tangible threat to public health and security in the country," stressing that "the disease has killed more than 500 thousand people" in the United States.

Biden noted that "it is of utmost importance to continue combating Covid-19 and dealing with it using all capabilities and capabilities of the federal government."

The United States is the first country in the world in terms of the number of registered infections with the new Coronavirus with 28.313 million cases, as well as the first in terms of the death toll from the pandemic with more than 504 thousand deaths.