According to a press release from the Guthrie County Department of Public Health, the B.117 strain of COVID-19 from the United Kingdom was identified in Guthrie County.

Public Health Director Jotham Arber says the vaccine being employed is still effective against this strain of COVID, but it is known to spread rapidly and extend the symptomatic rate for infected individuals from several days to a few weeks. Arber says the county’s still determining if the variant was limited to a few individuals or if it is present elsewhere in the county.

“The one thing we have going for us in Guthrie County is we have a fairly high first-shot vaccination rate. As of yesterday, we were at 30.4 percent first shot. But, what we’re really urging people to do, especially since [the variant] does spread a little faster is to continue to follow public health recommendations making sure that we’re not putting ourselves in positions to cause more spread. We’re doing more surveillance at the Health Department to see if it was just one or two individuals or to see how far the variant does go.”

To sign up for a vaccine, visit http://healthyguthrie.org/immunizeguthrie. For more information, you can visit the Guthrie County Department of Public Health on Facebook and view its video podcast series on different COVID-19 related topics. You can hear more from Arber in today’s Let’s Talk Guthrie County program.