Health Experts Warn New COVID Mutations Could Prolong Pandemic for Another Year in US - FARS

The coronavirus pandemic in the US could drag on for another year due to new mutant strains of the virus that could potentially derail vaccination efforts, health officials said.

Chief Medical Advisor Dr Anthony Fauci on Thursday warned that the health crisis "could get worse" now that multiple cases of COVID-19 variants have been detected in the country.

It comes as recent data had offered a glimmer of hope in the nation's battle against the virus, with infection and hospitalization rates falling nearly everywhere in US.

There are currently more than 25.7million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country and 432,603 total deaths.

On Thursday, another 155,333 cases were reported, with 4,011 deaths, according to the COVID Tracking Project. Hospitalizations, meanwhile, fell by over 3,000 and the number of new infections are continuing to decline across the states.

"We certainly are seeing, thankfully, a plateauing in cases...That's the good news," Fauci told MSNBC's Morning Joe.

"But superimposed upon the good news is the sobering news that we still have a lot of cases and we still have a very serious issue here," he said, adding, "And the thing that's troublesome now, that we really need to keep our eye on, are these variants."

There are now more than 300 reported cases of "super-covid" in the US, including the strains that were first found in Brazil, UK, and South Africa.

Although they have not proven to be more fatal, the variants are more contagious and have raised fears they could potentially be resistant to the newly developed vaccines.