ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida leads the nation with the most cases of the COVID-19 U.K. variant.
The Sunshine State has confirmed at least 600 people have the variant, named B-1-1-7, and the actual number of people infected is likely even higher.
However, the number of cases have stayed relatively low in Orange County.
When news about the U.K. variant first came out, there was a lot of anxiety about what it could mean in Florida, especially when we learned how much more contagious it seems to be. That hype has since calmed down.
At the start of 2021, scientists in the United Kingdom confirmed there was evidence of the B-1-1-7 variant of COVID-19, and it came with an increased risk of death.
It wasn’t long after that when two cases were found in Central Florida, and health leaders started to worry the area could see a new surge in cases because of it; but so far, that hasn’t really happened.
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Orange County has confirmed at least 17 cases, but they’re not recent.
The county said they learned those positive cases were in fact the U.K. variant 12 days after the person tested positive.
County leaders said there is not enough data to know exactly how many variant cases are in the area as less than 1% of all positive tests are checked for variants.
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COVID-19 cases have also been consistently dropping overall, and officials said that’s a good sign.
Dr. Raul Pino, with the Florida Department of Health in Orange County, said none of the people who had the U.K. variant in Orange County were hospitalized or died.
Cox Media Group
