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While most of the reporting on the measures that the Biden administration is considering appeared to be primarily focused on Florida, they also mentioned California to a slightly lesser extent, undercutting the narrative that the move would be political in nature.
"Outbreaks of the new variants — including a highly contagious one first identified in the United Kingdom, as well as others from South Africa and Brazil that scientists worry can evade existing vaccines — have lent urgency to a review of potential travel restrictions within the United States," the Associated Press reported Wednesday. "The U.K. variant, known as B.1.1.7, has recently exploded in Florida, where over a third of all cases in the United States have been identified."
"While COVID-19 cases in Florida have declined in recent weeks, the U.K. variant has spread rapidly in the state during that time," the report later added. "It now accounts for up to 15% of new cases in Florida, according to estimates from a team of researchers modeling the variant's growth across the country — up from about 1% at the beginning of January."
The CDC says that the U.K. variant of the coronavirus "spreads more easily and quickly than other variants" and that experts in the U.K. think that it could be more deadly than other variants, but there needed to be additional studies to confirm whether that was true. For context, British officials have claimed that there are estimated to be up to 4,000 variants of the coronavirus around the world.
Comment: What has France got to hide?