Stat News reports that the first known U.S. case of the variant of COVID-19 discovered in the U.K. is now in Colorado. This strain appears to be more transmissible, so that is bad news. The other bad news is that the federal government is rolling out the vaccines for coronavirus slower than predicted. While the Trump administration said 20 million would be vaccinated by the end of this year, U.S. authorities have only shipped more than 11 million doses of the two available vaccines, and just over 2.1 million people have received a shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. President-elect Joe Biden said Dec. 29 that at this pace, “it’s going to take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people.” Locally, the numbers of COVID-19 new cases continue to grow. The New York State webtracker reports 26 new COVID-19 cases in Greene County Dec. 28. The website says Columbia County had 29 new coronavirus cases. In Dutchess County there were 124 new positive tests, and Ulster County had 62 more cases. In Rensselaer County, there were 90 new cases, and Albany County had 232 cases.