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As California continues to ride its worst wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials have more worrying news: Four cases of a disturbing and potentially more infectious new variant of the coronavirus have been detected in California.
The new strain, first detected in the UK, has also been seen in Colorado and Florida and 33 other countries.
Last week, San Diego County reported identifying the new variant, called B.1.1.7, in a 30-year-old man with no travel history. Governor Gavin Newsom announced the discovery during a live broadcast event with Dr Anthony Fauci, a leading national voice in the pandemic. Over the weekend, San Diego County health officials reported three more cases.
Fauci said this news was expected, as international travel is underway and viruses generally mutate. “RNA viruses live on mutation,” he says. “The more you reply, the more you mutate.”
However, the lack of travel history in the San Diego case is an indicator that the new form of the virus is circulating in the community, health officials said.
“What’s really important is that detecting this lineage here doesn’t really change what we need to do other than we need to do it better,” Dr. Kristian Andersen, an infectious disease and genomics expert at Scripps Research in San Diego told a press conference. This includes wearing masks and maintaining social distance.
Here’s what Californians need to know about the new strain of coronavirus.
How was it discovered?
The new variant of the virus was first reported by England’s public health agency following an outbreak of cases in the south-east of the country. The first two samples were discovered in Kent and London in September.
Although mutations in viruses are common, this particular strain stands out because it carries more genetic changes than is typical, according to the researchers.
What’s wrong with this variant of coronavirus?
Public health officials say the new strain appears to be more easily transmitted than the standard form of the virus. This means that those exposed are more likely to be infected.
According to health officials in the UK, evidence shows that the infection grows faster in geographic areas where this variant is found. A study from the Center for the Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases in London shows that this particular strain is 56% more transmissible. The study is still under peer review.
California Health Secretary Dr Mark Ghaly explained it this way at a recent press conference: “For COVID to enter a human cell, it has to bind to a receptor, a kind of gate. input into a human cell, ”he said. “And the new mutated COVID virus appears to bind a little more tightly, a little easier, and enter the cell of the human body more easily than our current COVID virus.”
It is still unclear how this mutant form of the virus contributed to the current outbreak in California. Officials said its prevalence here is likely still low. On December 21, Ghaly said California had checked thousands of specimens daily for the past month, looking for mutations.
“We are worried about the unknowns,” Ghaly said. “We are concerned that we do not know how this affects large-scale efforts to contain and mitigate the virus as it currently exists.”
What is California doing in response?
The California Department of Public Health said health care providers were collecting samples for genetic sequencing and the state was analyzing samples suspected of being variant strains.
“As variants and mutations are discovered, this information is used to inform public health decisions and critical information is shared with the public,” the department said in an email.
What is the extent of the new strain?
After the detection of the new variant in the United Kingdom, around 40 countries have restricted travel from the United Kingdom. The variant has since been reported in France, Japan, Spain, Sweden and Canada, among other countries.
The first known case in the United States, in a Colorado National Guard in his 20s, was reported on December 30.
Two variants that share some mutations with the British variant have also been reported in South Africa and Nigeria, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We know there is more. We don’t know how many, ”said Andersen, the infectious disease expert in San Diego. “Its prevalence at the moment is relatively low.”
Will it make me sicker?
At this time, there is no evidence that this new COVID variant has a higher death rate or causes more severe illness than the currently predominant strain, according to the CDC. A recent UK government study compared patients infected with the new variant to those of the predominant strain and found no statistically significant differences in the severity of illness, death, or reinfection. However, scientists around the world are still studying the British variant, and more answers may come soon.
Will currently authorized vaccines protect against this new strain?
Scientists believe they will. Fauci told Newsom last week that the variant “does not appear to escape the protection offered by vaccine-induced antibodies.” But scientists are testing the variant against currently licensed vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna.
The CEO of AstraZeneca, which is developing another vaccine candidate COVID-19, told the London Times that scientists at the company believe the vaccine will protect against the new variant. But some scientists believe it is possible that the UK variant, or future variants, will prove more difficult for vaccines to overcome.
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Coverage, translation, and distribution of CalMatters COVID-19 is supported by generous grants from the Blue Shield of California Foundation, California Wellness Foundation, and California Health Care Foundation.
CALmatters.org is a non-profit, non-partisan media company explaining the politics and politics of California.
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