@camedei456
1) A new mutation IS in the wild. It's already responsible for most new Covid cases in UK, and undoubtedly it already made it's way in every country worth living in.
2) While new mutations happen all the time, this one is concerning because it happened in a particular spot that has the potential of making currently finished vaccines completely useless. Is this the case? We don't know yet. It might very well have no effect of how well the vaccine performs. Expect a bit of panic because of this uncertainty until analysis on this new strain is complete.

As for how effective measures were, first I don't have enough knowledge about the US situation to be able to analyze things. There are gonna be countless variables that make comparing one US state to another useless.
From what I can tell in my own country, measures do work. We were in a massive spike leading into December 1st. Here, 30th of November and 1st of December are important national holidays, and people usually go on short vacations or interact more with others. Basically a good opportunity for people to get infected. Measures were taken though just prior to this period, and instead of growth of cases we're currently on a slow decline.