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Public health experts are increasingly concerned that highly contagious variants of the coronavirus could disrupt efforts to control the spike in new COVID-19 cases hammering California.
Twenty-four new cases of a mutated strain of SARS-CoV-2, known as ‘B117’ and first identified in the UK in December, were discovered in San Diego County on Tuesday, bearing the total to 32 in the state.
“We expect more will be identified,” Governor Gavin Newsom said at a press briefing on Monday.
The variant of the virus – which is less detectable by current testing methods but up to 80% more transmissible from person to person than previous mutations – could push the current COVID-19 crisis in California to the point of disruption and threaten efforts to reopen the economy and schools.
“If the new variant manages to acquire a mutation that hides it from PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests, we will be heading for the worst perfect storm,” said Fyodor Urnov, director of the Innovative Genomics Institute at the UC Berkeley, whose lab tracks changes in the genetic material of viruses.
The new variant acquired mutations much faster than scientists expected. It has so far undergone 23 distinct variations, 17 of which are related to the building blocks of the proteins that make up the virus.
Newsom said California plans to step up its contact tracing and disease investigation efforts to track the new strain, which has also been identified in New York City, Georgia, Colorado and Florida.
“We haven’t detected the new strain in San Francisco yet,” said Dr Grant Colfax, the city’s senior health adviser. “It certainly wouldn’t be surprising if and when it is detected.”
California has a partnership with UCSF to conduct aggressive genomic testing – performing around 5,000 to 10,000 tests per week to identify the various mutations in the virus circulating in the state.
Charles Chiu, director of viral diagnostics at UCSF, said the British strain is likely already in circulation in the United States but has so far been identified in states with testing programs. robust genomic sequencing.
“Current data suggests that this is a variant that is not currently prevalent in the United States,” Chiu said. “It is in the minority of strains circulating in the United States. That being said, that could change very quickly. In the UK, it went from 5% to 60% of cases in three weeks. This is why it is really important for us to remain vigilant.
More contagious
The UK variant, which reportedly first surfaced in September, is more contagious but “not more serious in terms of impact on your condition,” Newsom said.
Public health officials believe that the mutations, including some changes in crucial spike proteins, allow the virus to bind more tightly and enter human cells more easily.
“It’s a little stickier than the COVID virus we’ve seen,” said Dr. Mark Ghaly, a senior health official in California.
More cases could mean fewer people have access to emergency medical care, especially as hospitals in California are sorely lacking in intensive care unit beds.
“In addition to an existing pandemic, it can make things worse,” Chiu said.
Health officials in Britain have also suggested that the B117 variant carries mutations that make children as likely to be infected as adults.
“We haven’t established causation on this, but we can see it in the data,” said Neil Ferguson, professor and infectious disease epidemiologist at Imperial College London. “We will need to collect more data to see how it performs in the future.”
Britain has closed its schools for the next six weeks as the country faces a record number of hospitalizations linked to COVID-19.
More difficult to detect
Because the virus is more difficult to detect – due to a mutation in a part of the spike protein gene that requires more stringent testing to become identifiable – it could hamper the ability of Bay Area schools to depend on rapid antigenic testing to reliably screen asymptomatic pupils. and the staff.
“The virus has more or less erased his fingerprints,” Urnov said.
A change in the virus’s genetic code, in particular, called ’69-70del’, has helped it escape detection by the immune system in some people, according to studies in the UK.
Dr Nicholas Moss, the Alameda County health official, said he was concerned about the new variants, but not too much.
“Variants have appeared over time, it’s part of how these organizations work,” he said. “The data from England that I have seen suggests that this one is spreading a bit better. How much better is still an area of exploration. The circumstantial evidence is quite worrying, direct evidence is still limited. “
He said the extent of the variant in the United States was also unclear, although it has infected more people than the cases reported so far. And he said it was too early to say whether the British variant, or another mutation, had helped fuel the current spike in cases on the west coast.
“I have nothing to suggest that this is causing a surge in any part of the United States,” he said. “Maybe we’ll find something similar has driven what we’ve been seeing here on the West Coast in recent weeks, whether it’s the UK variant or some other variant.
Variants versus vaccines
Another variant found in South Africa known as ‘501Y.V2’, which quickly became the dominant strain in coastal areas of the country, is also causing concern. Health experts fear that the vaccines currently in development may not be effective against it.
“This is the most pressing issue we are facing right now,” Dr. Richard Lessells, an infectious disease expert who is working on the country’s genomic studies on the variant, told The Associated Press on Monday. “We are urgently doing laboratory experiments to test the variant.”
The strain has so far been identified in the UK, Finland, Switzerland, Japan and Australia.
“The way you fight something that tends to change is that you have more than one weapon,” Urnov said. “We have more than one test. We have more than one vaccine. For now, given that there is a wide range of vaccines in development, we are optimistic that it will not be globally resistant.
Neither variant has been detected in the Bay Area, but Chiu said his lab is actively analyzing data from the area.
In the meantime, he said the best way to curb the spread of the new strains is to continue to follow the old mitigation measures: masking, physical distancing and good hand hygiene.
“If it’s here, there may still be a window of time to get it under control,” he said.
Journalist Erin Allday contributed to this article.
Aidin Vaziri is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected]
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