COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio’s top health official said Friday the variant first discovered in the United Kingdom is spreading rapidly in Ohio and may already be in every part of the state.
As of the latest update, 19 cases of the more infectious variant, B.1.1.7, have been detected in Ohio, eight of which were added in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report Thursday evening.
“It's north. It’s south. It's urban. It's rural,” said Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, the Chief Medical Officer for the Ohio Department of Health (ODH).
Vanderhoff said the variant has been detected in Cuyahoga, Hamilton, Lorain, Medina, Portage, and Ross counties, but he did not have county information for the newest cases. As of Thursday, ODH was looking at data on 12 cases of the variant, he said.
During their news conference Friday morning, Gov. Mike DeWine asked his health advisor if Ohioans should assume the variant is spreading in other counties, too.
“Absolutely,” Vanderhoff replied. “What's important about the testing is the trends and direction that it is revealing to us. Remember: It was not that long ago that we only had on the CDC site one case.”
With the latest development of eight new cases, Vanderhoff said ODH is even more confident in its assessment that the variant will be dominant in Ohio by late March or early April.
“I have every reason based on this information to continue to believe that,” he said. “Look, B.1.1.7 is here, and B.1.1.7 — wherever it has been — has spread very rapidly.”
Vanderhoff said with masking, distancing and vaccination, Ohio may be beginning to get control of the virus. Ohio’s seven-day case average was 2,145 as of Thursday’s report, and 1,388 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized.
“We've gained an upper hand,” he said. “But gaining an upper hand and winning this race are two different things. The virus isn't just packing up and going home.”
Vanderhoff explained the mutated virus still spreads via respiratory droplets, but he said the variants “have changed the stickiness of the spike protein,” which means people can contract the virus with less exposure.
“What has changed is that, increasingly, we're going to see that once it gets to my nose, it takes less virus to infect me, and the virus may make me sicker, quicker,” he said.
Eleven sequenced samples of the variant discovered in the U.K. have been uploaded to GISAID, a global database for tracking COVID-19 mutations — nine from University Hospitals in Cleveland, and one each from ODH and the CDC. The collection dates range from Dec. 29 to Feb. 12.
The variant first discovered in Brazilian travelers, P.1, and the variant first detected in South Africa, B.1351, have not been detected in Ohio, according to GISAID data.
In addition to B.1.1.7, there have been four cases of P.2, a second Brazilian variant that shares a mutation that scientists are concerned could allow for reinfection. Ohio has 14 cases of a more contagious strain known as B.1.427/B.1.429 that was first discovered in California, and researchers are concerned the variant may be more deadly and resistant to existing antibodies.
Vanderhoff said the state is most worried about B.1.1.7. When asked about these other variants, he cautioned against getting lost in the weeds of the different strains.
“There are actually many variants of interest — variants of the virus that have mutations that we are taking a look at,” he said. “One can almost get lost in the sea of variants.”
The good news: So far, studies show the currently authorized vaccines appear to be effective against B.1.1.7 and are stopping severe illness and death for other more contagious variants, even if reinfection is becoming a concern, he said.