| In a single day last month, India reported 314,835 new Covid-19 infections, the biggest one-day surge in cases for any country worldwide. The culprit: a coronavirus variant known as B.1.617 that pushed the country's health-care system to the brink.
Now that variant has been detected in at least 44 countries, including the U.S., where top health officials are growing increasingly concerned. While the highly contagious mutation has only been seen in less than 1% of U.S. cases so far, the potential for spreading is possible with anti-pandemic measures loosening and about 60% of Americans not yet fully vaccinated. Experts have expressed concern that under-vaccinated pockets of the U.S., particularly in the rural South, could become B.1.617 hot spots. One scientific group predicts the variant could be as much as 50% more transmissible than B.1.1.7, the variant that emerged from the U.K. and is now the dominant strain in the U.S.  A health-care worker prepares a Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 shot at the Oregon Health & Science University vaccination site at Portland International Airport. Photographer: Alisha Jucevic/Bloomberg Federal health officials, meanwhile, say there is "insufficient data" to determine with certainty whether B.1.167 is something the U.S. needs to address. It's why the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is ramping up its surveillance of the variant to determine whether to kick it up from a "variant of interest" to a "variant of concern," says Jade Fulce, a CDC spokesperson. Local health agencies are urged to report cases with the higher classification to the CDC, who would also report them to the World Health Organization. The designation would also spur efforts to control the variant's spread and, potentially, development of new diagnostics or the modification of vaccines or treatments. The good news: Some vaccines appear to be highly effective against the variant. A just-released U.K. study found the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 88% effective against a form of the variant two weeks after the second dose, affirming preliminary data from Phase 3 clinical trials. Still, and somewhat surprisingly, it was only about 33% effective after just one dose. The latest models by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation show daily Covid deaths will drop nationwide in the U.S. as July ends, then may creep up a bit in late August. However, the spread of new variants—particularly B.1.617 and the P.1 mutation first detected in Brazil—could boost infection rates even faster than that.—Fiona Rutherford | 
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