The news comes as President Joe Biden reinstates coronavirus travel bans for most non-U.S. Residents from multiple countries.
The United States has reported its first known case of the COVID-19 variant, first discovered in Brazil.
The Minnesota Department of Health confirmed the case on Monday, the day President Joe Biden extended coronavirus restrictions that banned most non-US citizens who recently traveled to Brazil, South Africa and several European countries in to enter the USA.
The variant of the novel coronavirus known as P1 has been detected in a copy of a Minnesota resident with a recent travel history to Brazil, the state’s Department of Health said in a statement.
The agency said it was the first documented instance of the P1 variant in the US.
While the so-called “Brazil variant” is believed to be more transmissible than the original strain of the virus that causes COVID-19, it is not known whether the disease it causes is more serious.
Biden has promised to launch a violent battle against COVID-19 in the United States, which has seen the highest number of coronavirus-related cases and deaths worldwide.
“With the pandemic worsening and the number of contagious variants increasing, this is not the time to lift restrictions on international travel,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said earlier in the day about the renewed travel restrictions.
According to data from Johns Hopkins University, the US has registered more than 25 million infections – around a quarter of all cases worldwide – and more than 420,000 deaths since the pandemic began.
The new head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned over the weekend that coronavirus-related deaths in the U.S. could exceed 500,000 by next month.
The CDC and the U.S. Department of State also announced that starting Tuesday, all travelers entering the U.S. will be required to show a negative COVID-19 test before boarding their flights. That includes US citizens and foreigners.
“The Department and the CDC continue to strongly encourage US citizens to reconsider overseas travel and postpone all non-essential travel,” they said in a statement Monday.
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