COLUMBUS, Ohio — COVID-19 cases have reached more than 21 million in the U.S. with more than 353,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

But what’s not known is how many of those cases are the new COVID-19 variant coming mostly from the United Kingdom.

“Unfortunately, there really isn't a way to know, the symptoms are really very similar,” explained Dr. Iahn Gonsenhauser with Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. “Whether or not this results in, you know, different severity of disease still remains to be seen.”

He said, at this point, testing for the specific COVID-19 mutation is not readily available.

“The way that it's set up to test for positivity or negativity it's not going to give you the answer,” he said. “This is really a separate test that has to be run. They take a positive test. They take that viral specimen, and then run it through a separate process to really identify exactly what that sequence is, what the genome is, and tell it apart from other variants, so it's a very different test that's being utilized by, you know, central authorities to try and evaluate and investigate the extent of this variant.”

While experts believe the new variant is more contagious, Dr. Gonsenhauser said it still remains to be seen if it causes more severe symptoms or death. Testing requirements have now increased for travelers coming from the UK, but the fact is, the mutated strain is already here.

“The real question is not, you know, necessarily, can we stop it or not,” he said. “I think the most important question right now is how widespread is it already here in the United States. It is a little bit more contagious. But not so far as to say that we need to go to, you know, DEFCON 1 and completely change everything that we're doing.”

Scientists believe the vaccine will also help protect against this variant.

But only time will tell the true extent of this changing virus proving the pandemic will be around a while longer.