Axios releases COVID-19 Variant Tracker

To help our members stay abreast of the COVID-19 pandemic response, including new and far more contagious variants, we share Axios’ announcement on its new COVID-19 variant tracker, which is frequently updated and includes informative graphics. To serve as disability-specific companion pieces to this content, we encourage our members to watch the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities vaccine safety education webinar and follow their Get Out the Vaccine Campaign.

As reported by Axios:

“New variants of SARS-CoV-2 are rapidly spreading through the U.S. These coronavirus variants are being studied because they may be more transmissible, cause more severe disease, or reduce the efficacy of current vaccines. Our live tracker keeps you updated with the key information you need to know.

The big picture: Multiple coronavirus variants are now spreading rapidly around the world, supplanting the original virus in some parts of the United States. Read more ↗

Details: In autumn 2020, researchers began spotting new coronavirus variants that seemed to spread faster than the virus that was first detected more than a year ago.

• The B.1.1.7 variant, which was first found in the U.K., began to spread around the globe. Others popped up in Brazil, South Africa, Japan, the U.S., and elsewhere.
• Data now show these new, more transmissible variants make up a majority of sequenced coronavirus samples in the United States.
• March was a pivotal month in the United States. Data for the month are only just becoming available, but a new study in the journal Cell estimates that as data catch up, they will show that B.1.1.7 became the dominant variant in many U.S. states by late March.”