New strain, family visits raise fears deadliest months of pandemic now ahead

The bright lights of the winter holidays are giving way to a dark winter of death and disease across the United States as a new variant of the coronavirus that has already killed more than 350,000 Americans begins to worry public health experts and officials.

Millions of Americans who traveled to see family over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays once again threaten to contribute to an already unprecedented spike in cases caused by family gatherings over the Thanksgiving holidays.

Fourteen of the 20 worst outbreaks in the world, measured by the number of residents per 100,000 infected, are American states. Arizona, California, Rhode Island and Tennessee have all recorded an average of more than 90 new cases a day per capita over the last week.

It is too early to tell whether the Christmas holiday will lead to a substantial spike in cases. Most states paused testing and reporting of new case data over at least a few days during the holiday week, muddling figures from the first several days of the new year.

But experts are also worried by the new variant of the virus that broke out first in the United Kingdom. Early research suggests that variant is substantially more transmissible than previous strains. While experts say it does not appear that the strain causes more severe disease, the simple arithmetic of higher transmission is likely to lead to more death.