A new, more contagious variant of the novel coronavirus first identified in the United Kingdom has been detected in Alabama for the first time.

The Alabama Department of Public Health announced Wednesday that two cases of the variant were confirmed in Montgomery County residents and a third in a Jefferson County resident. Two of the patients are children under the age of 19.

"These are the first reported cases in Alabama of the variant which was first detected in the United Kingdom in late 2020," the department said in a statement. "This variant is associated with increased person-to-person transmission of COVID-19. ADPH is closely monitoring the emergence of this variant which has been detected in at least 24 other states."

The so-called B117 variant, which is believed to have emerged in England in September, has been detected in more than two dozen U.S. states.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now projects that the country will have recorded up to 514,000 COVID-19 deaths by Feb. 20.

The CDC on Wednesday published its latest national ensemble forecast, which predicts that the country's COVID-19 death rate will likely decrease over the next four weeks and that 13,500 to 25,000 new fatalities from the disease will likely be reported in the week ending Feb. 20. A total of 479,000 to 514,000 COVID-19 deaths are projected to be reported nationwide by this date.

Last week’s national ensemble forecast predicted there would be a total of 465,000 to 508,000 COVID-19 deaths reported nationwide by Feb. 13.

ABC News' Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.

The United States has detected at least 315 confirmed cases of the highly contagious variant of the novel coronavirus that first emerged in the United Kingdom, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

California and Florida are tied at 92 cases each for the U.S. state with the most confirmed cases of the so-called B117 variant, according to CDC data.

The variant was first identified in England in September and has since spread to dozens of other countries around the world.

ABC News' Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.

A COVID-19 vaccine advisory committee that gives recommendations on priority groups to Oregon's governor and public health officials will vote Thursday on whether to focus next on people of color, according to The Associated Press.

Others, such as people with chronic medical conditions, essential workers, refugees, inmates and people under 65 living in group settings, are also being considered as the next eligible group to receive COVID-19 vaccines in the state.

The committee is also deciding whether to focus on some combination of groups at higher risk from COVID-19, according to AP.

The coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately affected communities of color in the United States.

"It's about revealing the structural racism that remains hidden," Dr. Kelly Gonzales, a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and a health disparity expert on Oregon's COVID-19 advisory committee, told AP. "It influences the disparities we experienced before the pandemic and exacerbated the disparities we experienced during the pandemic."

The United Kingdom now has the highest COVID-19 transmission and death rates of any country in the world, according to the World Health Organization's weekly epidemiological report released Wednesday.

With 383.1 new cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 residents, the U.K.'s transmission rate is higher than that of the United States, which decreased by 20% over the previous week to 380.6 new cases per 100,000 residents. But the UK appears to be moving in the right direction -- this week showed a 24% decrease in new cases confirmed from the previous week, the report said.

The U.K.'s COVID-19 death rate is also the world's highest, with 12.9 fatalities from the disease per 100,000 residents. The country -- which is made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland -- saw a 13% increase in new deaths over the previous week, according to the report.

In the U.S., the COVID-19 death rate went down by 7% to 6.5 fatalities per 100,000 residents, the report said.

As of Monday, 70 countries have detected cases of a new, more contagious variant of the novel coronavirus that was first identified in the U.K., while 31 nations have cases of another variant that first emerged in South Africa and eight countries have cases of a variant that was first identified in Brazil, according to the report.

ABC News’ Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.