dooderooni
Well-known member
Maybe the 'US variant' is just the same one that ripped through Italy and Spain in the beginning. It's pretty likely that the initial outbreak in New York came as a result of travel from Europe rather than having anything to do with direct importation from China and the far east.
Trump touts his China ban as making a difference, but he allowed travel from elsewhere for a lot longer.
The scale of the New York outbreak was such that it is very plausible that it allowed a dominant strain to take hold and then, given the whole haphazard mask mandating and compliance under the Trump administration, they never reduced those infections to a point where another strain could dominate.
If we got infections down and allowed another more virulent strain in then it'd have far less obstacles to spreading than if we had high levels of infection already.
Trump touts his China ban as making a difference, but he allowed travel from elsewhere for a lot longer.
The scale of the New York outbreak was such that it is very plausible that it allowed a dominant strain to take hold and then, given the whole haphazard mask mandating and compliance under the Trump administration, they never reduced those infections to a point where another strain could dominate.
If we got infections down and allowed another more virulent strain in then it'd have far less obstacles to spreading than if we had high levels of infection already.