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The coronavirus variant first detected in the U.K. late last year now accounts for up to 10% of COVID-19 cases in the U.S., officials said Friday. The 10% marks an uptick in prevalence, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said. Just a few weeks ago, the variant accounted for about 1-4% of illnesses, she added. Officials had previously predicted the B.1.1.7 variant, estimated to be about 50% more transmissible than the wild strain first detected in the U.S., would become the dominant strain in the country by mid-March. Walensky said that the U.S. "may now be seeing the beginning effects" of the variants in the most recent data, which reflected an uptick in several seven-day averages. (Hein, 2/27)

Federal officials are expressing worry that the decline in daily new coronavirus cases nationwide is starting to flatten as one of the variants, from the U.K., is on the rise. They warned states against relaxing COVID-19 restrictions, saying the nation remains at a precarious point that could tip into a fourth surge before more people get vaccinated. (Lin II, 2/27)

U.K. health officials are anxious to trace one of six individuals infected with a more contagious variant of the coronavirus, initially identified in Brazil. Up to six cases of the new strain — dubbed P.1 and considered a “variant of concern” by global health experts — have been detected in the U.K., with three cases in Scotland and three in England. (Ellyatt, 3/1)

P1 was first detected in Japan, in people who had travelled from Manaus in Brazil. Investigations confirmed the variant in Manaus, the city on the Amazon river that suffered an intense first wave of coronavirus that peaked in April. A survey of blood donors in October suggested that 76% of the population had antibodies, so were presumed at least temporarily immune. But in January, there was a big resurgence among people who had previously recovered from Covid. P2 is widespread in Brazil and has fewer worrying mutations. (Boseley, 3/1)

One of the strongest weapons against the troubling number of new coronavirus variants in the United States and worldwide may be one vaccine the FDA hasn't approved yet. Earlier this month, the World Health Organization gave the go ahead for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to be used internationally, and it is already being distributed in countries around the world to help fight COVID-19. But AstraZeneca is awaiting the results of clinical trials in America, which it expects to wrap up in the coming weeks, before it makes its application to the FDA. In the meantime, buoyed by the fact that their vaccine is relatively easy to update, scientists at Britain's Oxford University are modifying it in a preemptive strike to prevent new coronavirus variants, including the variant first discovered in South Africa, from taking hold. (D'Agata, 2/27)

People who share a household with a member who has COVID-19 have a 10.1% risk of infection, according to a research letter published today in JAMA Network Open. The retrospective cohort study used electronic records from the Mass General Brigham health system to track 7,262 COVID-19 index cases and their 17,917 household contacts from Mar 4 to May 17, 2021. During the study period, 1,809 household members (10.1%) were diagnosed as having COVID-19 a median of 3 days after the index diagnosis. (2/26)

As long as widescale testing and genetic surveillance remains constrained, we'll always be a step behind COVID-19. But sequencing sewage presents a cheap and simple way of keeping tabs on viral spread within a community. (Walsh, 2/27)

That means we need to be more careful about protecting ourselves. To do that, public health officials are recommending that people make a greater effort to avoid indoor spaces like grocery stores and double-mask when going indoors in a public setting. Which has some people wondering: Should we be more careful outdoors, too? Do we now need to stay more than 6 feet away from our friends around that fire pit? What about those joggers who seem to be perpetually running toward us, unmasked? (Samuel, 2/26)

In a February survey of more than 100 immunologists, infectious-disease researchers and virologists, almost 90% said that SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid, will become endemic. That means that there’s a “constant presence and/or usual prevalence of a disease or infectious agent in a population within a geographic area,” according to the Centers for Disease Control. (Stieg, 2/27)

Dulce Garcia was afraid. The 29-year-old’s coronavirus infection started ordinarily enough. She ran a fever. She had difficulties breathing. And it terrified her. (Engel-Smith, 3/1)