The White House COVID-19 task force has warned that there could be a fresh variant of the novel coronavirus that evolved in the United States and is driving spread, CNBC reported, citing a document obtained by NBC News.
The new strain is already spreading in communities and may be 50 percent more transmissible, the report said, adding that the country's recent surge in COVID-19 cases has been at roughly twice the rate seen in the spring and summer seasons.
"Without uniform implementation of effective face masking (two or three ply and well-fitting) and strict social distancing, epidemics could quickly worsen as these variants spread and become predominant," the report cautioned.
Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, also told CNBC last week that the United States would likely see more new coronavirus variants appear.
Yet the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement that it has not seen the emergence of a highly contagious new U.S. variant of the coronavirus, unlike variants in Britain and South Africa, according to CNBC.
