ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida tallied more than a thousand new cases of coronavirus variants this week, reaching 3,494 and retaining by far the top spot among U.S. states, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


What You Need To Know

  • Florida claims more than a thousand new cases of coronavirus variants this week, CDC says 

  • Sunshine State claims about 18% of cases in the US, down slightly from last week

  • Orange County reports 159 cases as of Thursday, Seminole County 65 as of Tuesday

With 2,262, Michigan maintains the second-most cases of variants.

Some health experts attribute the prevalence of variant cases in Florida to tourism, which has gotten a boost from the open economic policy of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

As of Thursday, Florida claimed 17.9% of the variant cases in the U.S., down from 18.6% last Thursday, according to the CDC.

In Florida and the U.S., the vast majority of the cases involved the B.1.1.7 variant, first identified in the United Kingdom. Florida claims 87 cases of the P.1 variant, first identified in Brazil, and 25 cases of the B.1.351 variant, first identified in South Africa.

Some studies link the B.1.1.7 variant and the B.1.351 variant to a 50% increase in transmissibility.

Donna Walsh, health officer at the Florida Department of Health in Seminole County, emphasized this week that the Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines remain effective against variants, even though preliminary studies have shown the vaccines to have lower efficacy against them than against the original coronavirus strain.

“It’s really important for all of us to continue to encourage the vaccine, because we really need to stay ahead of this virus and the variants,” Walsh told Spectrum News 13 on Wednesday. “The vaccines that are currently available do protect against the COVID-19 virus at a very high rate.”

Seminole County reported 65 variant cases as of Tuesday, she said. She knew of one case of the P.1 variant, one case of the B.1.351 variant, and two cases of variants first identified in California. The rest were B.1.1.7 cases, Walsh said.

In Orange County, health official Dr. Raul Pino reported 17 additional cases from Monday through Thursday.

That brought the county’s variant cases to 159, including 143 of the B.1.1.7 variant, two of the B.1.351 variant, and three of the P.1 variant. The county also reported a combined 11 cases of two variants first identified in California.

Pino continued to emphasize Thursday that the variants have been appearing in higher percentages of younger Orange County residents.

Like Pino, Walsh says the counties’s reports don’t tell the entire stories.

“The number that we’re seeing gives us an idea of what’s circulating in our community,” she said. “But it’s by no means comprehensive.”

The reports also don’t provide a current number of residents infected with a variant. That's because scientists test for variants through a time-consuming laboratory method called genomic sequencing.

“By the time they’re reported to us,” Walsh said, “that individual is really no longer considered infectious.”