Colorado.gov official statement: “Today, Gov. Polis and state health officials announced Colorado’s first case of the of COVID-19 variant B.1.1.7, the same variant discovered in the UK. The Colorado State Laboratory confirmed and notified the CDC of the case. The individual is a male in his 20s who is currently in isolation in Elbert County and has no travel history.”

“Public health officials are doing a thorough investigation. The individual is recovering in isolation and will remain there until cleared by public health officials. The individual has no close contacts identified so far, but public health officials are working to identify other potential cases and contacts through thorough contact tracing interviews. The Colorado state lab was the first in the country to quickly identify the variant through sophisticated analysis of testing samples. The lab initially performed the diagnostic PCR test on the sample and found that the sample was positive for COVID-19 with strong signals for the N gene and ORF1ab (both are detected when a person has COVID-19), but the signal for the S gene was not detected. When the S gene doesn’t register in the testing, it is called an ‘S Drop Out Profile,’ and it is considered an essential signature for the variant. The sample was flagged for further investigation. Scientists then sequenced the viral genome from the patient sample and found eight mutations specific to the spike protein gene associated with this variant. Genome sequencing is a molecular profiling of the entire viral RNA sequence.”