The B.1.617.2 strain is also rising in the US, rising from just one per cent of all new cases at the start of May to seven per cent as it becomes more and more prevalent, according to data from virus tracker Outbreak.Info. It was first detected in the US around late February and was designated a variant of interest by the CDC on March 4, but health chiefs stopped short of labeling it a variant of concern. The World Health Organization has classified it as a variant of concern, meaning it is more contagious, more deadly or more resistant to treatment amid fears it could evade protections offered by vaccines. Samuel Scarpino, co-founder of Global.health which tracks Covid cases and variants worldwide, told Bloomberg: 'I think the CDC should be doing more in terms of communicating the risks of this variant, and that should translate into states taking precautions more seriously than we’re currently doing.'