New York City health officials said Thursday that the best defense against a newly-discovered COVID-19 variant in New York City is to keep doing what New Yorkers have been doing for nearly a year: social distancing, masking up, washing their hands, and getting vaccinated when they are eligible.
“We need you to continue to do all of the things that we’ve been doing,” Public Health Advisor Jay Varma said on Thursday. “We realize this is painful and difficult, but persistence is really important.”
The new strain, identified by a team of researchers at Caltech and Columbia University known as B1526, has raised concerns among researchers that it could adversely impact the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.