COVID-19 variant may be in US since October: report

A more contagious strain of the coronavirus that has been confirmed in three U.S. states may have been in the country since October, according to a new report.

Researchers say a mutation of the virus identified in the United States appears to be similar to the B117 variant of the bug – the so-called “British variant” – which may even have originated in the United States, the Guardian said in a report.

The most easily transmitted strain was identified in patients in California, Colorado and Florida on Friday, according to the newspaper.

“It wouldn’t be at all surprising if at least some of the cases were B117,” said researcher Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California.

“It’s probably been there for a while at low levels, but you don’t see it until you look for it,” Topol said.

UK officials announced the existence of a variant of the global pandemic on December 14, prompting at least 17 countries to announce travel bans to the UK.

Florida on Thursday became the third U.S. state to identify a similar variant – joining California and Colorado, which reported cases earlier this week.

The discovery prompted scientists at the California DNA testing company Helix to examine 2 million COVID-19 tests, which determined that a genetic pattern similar to the mutated virus had existed in some samples since October, the Guardian said.

Helix is ​​now working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine the extent of the variant’s presence in the country.

“If we see the (B117 variant), then we might be able to see if it has been introduced to the United States one or more times, or if it has mutated further,” said Nicole Washington, associate director of research. at Helix.

“If all the samples have it, then it’s probably been there for a while,” she says. “But if only one or two samples have it, then it may have been introduced recently and we are only at the beginning of seeing it spread.”

A scientist said that there is also a possibility – though unlikely – that the variant originated in the United States and not in Great Britain.