U.S. officials eye new COVID-19 strain in UK, urge vigilance

The United States is monitoring the new strain of COVID-19 emerging in the United Kingdom, multiple U.S. officials said on Sunday, adding that it was unclear whether the mutated variant had made its way to America. "We don't know yet. looking very carefully into this," U.S. COVID-19 vaccine program head Dr. Moncef Slaoui told CNN's "State of the Union" program.

The United States is monitoring the new strain of COVID-19 emerging in the United Kingdom, multiple U.S. officials said on Sunday, adding that it was unclear whether the mutated variant had made its way to America.

"We don't know yet. We are, of course... looking very carefully into this," U.S. COVID-19 vaccine program head Dr. Moncef Slaoui told CNN's "State of the Union" program. Slaoui, chief scientific adviser for the Trump Administration's Operation Warp Speed effort for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, added that the UK mutation was "very unlikely" to be resistant to current vaccines, saying: "We can't exclude it, but it's not there now."