A user’s guide to the California coronavirus variants

It seemed like everything was better – then the mutants arrived.

Yes, the horror story that is our life a year after the start of the coronavirus pandemic had already challenged us with a lot of twists and turns just as you let go of the guard. And here we are, with case rates and deaths plummeting, businesses reopening and millions of people getting vaccinated in every corner of the country. Things are improving. But now health officials and infectious disease experts are keeping an eye out for something threatening all of this advancement: COVID-19 mutations.

You’ve probably heard of these variants before: UK, South Africa, and Brazilian varieties. There’s even a California and New York version appearing now.

What are they? Will vaccines protect us from it? And what threat do they pose to our recovery?

These are the key questions as scientists and medical providers rush to stop their spread and end the pandemic.

Like other viruses, the coronavirus has mutated over time. Its crown-shaped tips may change as it spreads. This is not at all unusual and it is not always a source of warning – in fact, tracking mutations helps scientists trace the spread of the virus from one place to another. But several variations are causing concern across the United States

In general, “they’re spread faster, they’re highly transmissible, they can cause more disease, and they can evade the immune response,” said Melanie Ott, director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology in San Francisco.

This isn’t necessarily true for all variants, and scientists themselves disagree that some of the newer strains, like the one first detected in South Africa, are making people sicker. than the original.

“We don’t know yet,” said Benjamin Pinsky, medical director of the clinical virology lab at Stanford.

Even the naming of the variants themselves is controversial and incredibly convoluted. Different researchers use different names for the same virus. Some rely on when a variant was first identified, while others have to do with which particular part of the virus changed. All of this has led people to identify variations geographically. This in turn raised concerns about the excessive stigmatization of residents of these places, but so far there is no clear and standardized alternative.

Here’s a quick rundown of the worrisome variants in the United States:

The British strain

Also known in the scientific community as B.1.1.7, this variant was identified in the UK last fall. It appears to be around 50% more infectious than the original virus, scientists say. In January, British experts said it also appeared to be more deadly than the original strain. It was first detected in the United States in December 2020 and is now spreading here. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 2,600 cases have been reported in at least 47 states and Puerto Rico. California has recorded more than 200 cases. The CDC said it could become the dominant variant in the United States by this spring.

The good news: Researchers like Pinsky are less concerned about the British variant than some, because the vaccines appear to be very effective in preventing people exposed to this variant from getting sick.

The South African strain

Also known as B.1.351, this variant was identified in South Africa in October and arrived in the United States in January. It appears to be better at avoiding antibodies produced by the body’s immune system, raising concerns about whether this variant reduces the effectiveness of available coronavirus vaccines. For example, overseas clinical trials of the Novavax and AstraZeneca PLC vaccines have shown them to be less effective in South Africa than elsewhere.

The United States has recorded more than 68 cases of the South African variant in 17 states, including several cases in California. The CDC says there is no evidence to suggest the variant has an impact on the severity of the disease, but the South African Minister of Health said it appeared to affect young people more than earlier versions of the disease. coronavirus. (This observation also coincided with a large number of graduation parties where young people gathered.)

The Brazilian strain

Known as the P.1, this variant was identified in January when Brazilian travelers arrived in Japan. As with the South African variant, scientists are concerned that the Brazilian strain is better at spoofing antibodies, which means vaccines may be less effective.

There is also some evidence that people who have already recovered from COVID-19 could be re-infected with the Brazilian strain. This appears to be happening in the Brazilian city of Manaus, which was hit so badly last spring by a different variant that some scientists speculated that the city could have achieved herd immunity, where a large percentage of the population has become immune. and the virus starts to have trouble spreading. But P.1 struck earlier this year, infecting people who were already sick.

So far, at least 13 cases have been reported in at least seven US states. Stanford scientists have found another Brazilian variant, known as P.2, in the Bay Area, and Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said on Wednesday that officials there had also identified a case. It is different from the P.1 variant which is of widespread concern but has yet to be identified in California, according to the CDC.

California and New York

There is also another variant of concern in California which appears to be a local variant known as B.1.427 and B.1.429. This variant is now spreading widely in California, and research by UCSF suggests it could make people sicker and may be more contagious than the earlier coronavirus.

Governor Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday that a variant spreading to New York and the East Coast – B.1.526, which also appears to be able to evade some of the body’s defenses – has been identified in southern California.

Most COVID-19 tests only determine whether a person is infected or not, so it can be difficult to tell exactly which patients have which variant. But Pinsky said it was helpful to do more sophisticated lab tests to determine which variants are spreading in a given community, because doctors can then change treatment plans. For example, people infected with certain variants respond well to treatment with monoclonal antibodies. But for other variants, such as the California variant, combination antibody therapy may make more sense.

In recent weeks, researchers like Charles Chiu, an infectious disease expert at UCSF, have been tracking the California variant in the Bay Area, focusing on the Mission District of San Francisco, where COVID-19 has hit hard. a largely Latin community. As with other variants, experts are tracking how they respond to so-called neutralizing antibodies – by checking to see if the virus is resistant – and studying transmissibility by looking at how quickly the virus spreads, within individual households and beyond.

The understanding of health experts is changing daily, sometimes hourly. But they know that while vaccines may be slightly less effective against some variants, the three approved in the United States – Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson – have been shown to be 100% effective in preventing coronavirus-related deaths and hospitalizations. , regardless of a variant.

In other words, “even if you are infected and vaccinated, you won’t die and you won’t go to the hospital,” Ott said.

As far as medicine is concerned, it is a small miracle.

And the pharmaceutical companies that make the vaccines are already exploring ways to make the vaccines more effective at warding off the variants, potentially through booster shots.