BATON ROUGE, La (BRPROUD) – The Louisiana Department of Health says the state’s first case of the U.K. strain of COVID-19 was found Saturday.

“It’s easy to spread COVID, but now it’s really easy to spread COVID,” said Connie DeLeo, Infection Preventionist at Baton Rouge General.

The COVID-19 variant is said to be more contagious. It is believed to not be more deadly than the original virus.

DeLeo says it is normal for viruses to mutate.

“What most experts think, is the vaccine will cover or protect us from that mutation or strain. So that’s really good news, right? Because we’ve already started taking the vaccine. Lots of people have started taking it,” DeLeo explained.

As of Tuesday, LDH reported 267,720 doses of the vaccine have been administered.

Experts are encouraging people to get the vaccine when it is available to them.

As it continues to roll out, we are all still asked to mask up.

“Not only does my mask protect you and your mask protect me, but probably my mask protects me as well. So, if we’ve got everyone wearing a mask, then the likelyhood of COVID being transmitted by those droplets is very small,” DeLeo added.

Vaccine distribution is still in Phase One B, Tier One. It is targeting health care providers and people 70 and older.

You can make an appointment by finding a list of pharmacies here.

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