OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - A variant of the coronavirus first found in Brazil has been found in Omaha, state health officials said.
On Wednesday, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services confirmed two people in Douglas County had tested positive for the so-called Brazil P.1 variant, the Omaha World-Herald reported.
That strain is believed to be responsible for a surge in hospitalizations in Brazil even though many people there had already developed COVID-19 and made antibodies against it.
The Douglas County cases were detected through COVID testing, and investigations into the cases are underway, state health officials said.
As of Thursday, the state's virus-tracking dashboard showed more than 205,500 people in Nebraska have tested positive for the virus and 2,130 have died from COVID-19 since the outbreak began last year.
The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Nebraska has decreased over the past two weeks, going from nearly 261 new cases per day on March 2 to just over 232 new cases per day on March 16, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.