Slow coronavirus tracking in U.S. might allow variants to spread undetected: media

People wait to get across the street in San Francisco, California, the United States, March 24, 2021. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaoling)

The United States has an enormous virus-sequencing capacity, but funding and coordination roadblocks are holding it back.

WASHINGTON, April 9 (Xinhua) -- Researchers worry that the United States is ramping up surveillance of the coronavirus too slowly, allowing its variants to spread undetected in the country, according to science journal Nature.

"As COVID-19 cases surge again in the United States, coronavirus variants are on the rise. But researchers fear that the country is ramping up surveillance of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 slowly, allowing these variants -- which evidence shows could make vaccines less effective -- to spread undetected in one of the countries hit hardest by the disease," said an article posted on the weekly journal's website on Wednesday.

The United States has an enormous virus-sequencing capacity, but funding and coordination roadblocks are holding it back, the journal said.