Los Angeles County public health officials on Saturday confirmed the first case of a more contagious variant of COVID-19 that originated in the United Kingdom—a development that was expected.

Health officials also reported 253 additional people have died due to COVID-19, and reported 14,669 new cases, which puts the county over the grim milestone of one million cases since March when the pandemic began. To date, 13,741 have died of the virus.

The person who contracted the new variant of the virus, only identified as a man, spent time in Los Angeles County before traveling to Oregon, where he is currently isolating, officials said. It was detected by a lab in Washington state.

“Although this is the first confirmed case of the U.K. variant in Los Angeles County, Public Health believes that it is already spreading in the community,” officials said in a written statement. “Viruses constantly change through mutation, and new variants of a virus are expected to occur over time.”

The new variant is not believed to be more deadly, but spreads more easily. After first showing up in the United Kingdom in September, it has now been discovered in numerous countries around the world.

California announced its first case of the new variant in late December, shortly after it was discovered in Colorado.

Meanwhile Los Angeles County on Saturday also reported the number of coronavirus patients in county hospitals remained unchanged from Friday at 7,597, with 22% in the ICU. After peaking at just over 8,000, hospitalizations have been inching down in recent days.

The county has a total of about 2,500 licensed ICU beds.

But health officials have warned that hospital numbers could significantly rise again due to people who were infected over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. The county has continued to see elevated daily new case numbers, which always translate to more people being hospitalized.

Although the one million figure represents about one-tenth of the overall population, modeling released by the county this week estimated that as many as one-third of residents have actually been infected at some point, most likely without ever knowing it.

The county is working to ramp up vaccination efforts, with plans to open five large-scale vaccine sites on Tuesday. Those will be in addition to the large site opened by the city at Dodger Stadium on Friday, and 75 smaller sites the county is already operating.

On Saturday, former Long Beach Mayor Beverly O’Neill received a vaccination to kick off the city’s program to vaccinate residents older than 65. The city will begin a massive vaccination clinic on Tuesday at the Long Beach Convention Center.

City News Service contributed to this report.