LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The new variants circling the country now make up more than half of COVID-19 cases nationally.
So, where does Arkansas stand?
Back on March 2, Dr. Jose Romero with the department of health, announced that the first case of the UK variant had been detected in Arkansas. Now, a little over a month later, that number has grown.
Biophysicist and assistant professor at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville Mahmoud Moradi said this isn't time to panic, but we need to be cautious.
"The mutations and the variants have always been very important for us from the beginning, but they became a lot more important recently," he said.
Variants have been on Moradi's mind for over a year now. He spends many days in his lab trying to understand how all these variants differ at the molecular level.
"In many cases, this is just randomly happening, a new variant becomes more dominant with no particular reason it just happens," he said.
These variants aren't surprising, according to Moradi. It happens with viruses all the time, like the flu, but what's turning heads is the speed at which they're spreading.
"That's exactly what we are trying to understand, the scientists are trying to understand, and my lab is also trying to contribute to that," he said.
According to the department of health, Arkansas has identified 17 cases of the variant first spotted in the UK and a total of 17 cases of a pair of variants first spotted in California.
The state has reported 0 cases of the South African variant and 1 case of the Brazil variant.
Since they're proving to be more transmissible, Moradi said both the UK and the California variants are categorized as "variants of concern."
"Those are the variants that people are suspecting that might be actually behaviorally different and they could make trouble," he said.
As the virus becomes more widespread, Moradi said, the greater the chance different variants begin to form.
"We are not isolated from the other states, so obviously anything that happens in other states will eventually come here too," he said.
When it comes to vaccines and their effectiveness with these variants, Moradi said just because trials weren't specifically done with these new variants doesn't mean they can beat the vaccine, but studies are being done now to get more accurate data.
Remember those 3 W's we continued to repeat at the beginning of the pandemic: wash your hands, watch your distance, wear a mask— doctors say those techniques are still just as effective with these new variants.