{"id":31620,"date":"2021-02-11T18:13:01","date_gmt":"2021-02-12T02:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=31620"},"modified":"2021-02-11T18:13:01","modified_gmt":"2021-02-12T02:13:01","slug":"another-reason-to-wear-a-mask-and-be-careful-in-dc-uk-south-african-virus-strains-detected-in-nations-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=31620","title":{"rendered":"Another reason to wear a mask and be careful in DC: UK, South African virus strains detected in nation\u2019s capital"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two separate variants of the coronavirus, first detected in the United Kingdom and South Africa, have been detected in three Washington, D.C. residents, the city health department said Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Director of D.C. Health LaQuandra Nesbitt noted that not every positive test has been sequenced, only a sample, so there are likely more cases of the variants present.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is not surprising to D.C. Health,&#8221; Nesbitt said, noting that cases have been detected in Maryland and Virginia in recent weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Nesbitt said additional details are not yet known, including whether the people infected have been informed that they have the variant.<\/p>\n<p>Still, nobody&#8217;s behavior should change. Keep wearing a mask, keep physical distance, and continue avoiding large gatherings, especially indoors.<\/p>\n<p>The two variants are more contagious, but experts have expressed confidence that available vaccines will be effective at least against B-117, the variant first found in the U.K.<\/p>\n<p>The strain first found in South Africa could be more problematic, as drugmakers may need to develop booster shots or revamp current vaccination formulas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two separate variants of the coronavirus,&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-u-s-a","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31621,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31620\/revisions\/31621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}