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Newly mutated strains of the novel coronavirus spotted around the world – such as those ravaging the UK and South Africa – raise concerns that they may also become dominant here in the United States. Now Americans have a newly grown strain in their country to worry about – and public health experts suspect it could have been the cause of Southern California’s most recent outbreak.
Recently, American scientists looked for signs of the British coronavirus variant, known as B 1.1.7, in California when they stumbled upon something different. The strain of coronavirus B 1.1.7 has a 50-70% higher transmission rate and may be more deadly, which has prompted studies to see how much it has infected the American population. Yet while searching for B 1.1.7, scientists came across a new strain that has particular mutations, which is now dubbed CAL.20C. According to an article published by researchers at Cedars-Sinai, which has not yet been peer reviewed, the new strain SARS-CoV-2 appears to account for at least 36% of COVID-19 cases in the Los Angeles area and 24% in Southern California as of December 2020. This correlates with a huge increase in coronavirus infections in Southern California at the time.
“After an analysis of all publicly available data and a comparison with our recent sequences, we see dramatic growth in the relative percentage of the CAL.20C strain from November 2020,” the researchers wrote in the article. “The predominance of this strain coincides with the increased positivity rate observed in this region.”
As of mid-January, scientific modeling estimated that one in three LA County residents had been infected with the coronavirus. As the southern California boom appears to be winding down, scientists fear that a further mutation of the CAL.20C strain, called L452R, has a similar structural change to the variant found in South Africa.
As Salon previously reported, the 20C / 501Y.V2 variant, also known as the B.1.351 line – which emerged in Durban, South Africa – is alarming because the mutation occurs on the so-called The virus’s outer “spike”, or proteins on the outer layer of the virus that look like spikes like a sea urchin. Spike mutations have a chance to mask the appearance of the virus on the immune system of someone who already has antibodies to the coronavirus, which can make it easier to bypass immune protection. L452Rs might be similar to the South African strain in this regard.
“The mutation of the S L452R protein is in a known receptor binding domain that has been shown to be markedly resistant to certain monoclonal antibodies directed against the spike protein,” the Cedars-Sinai researchers wrote in the article. They note that the spike protein mutations could be “resistant” to antibodies from previous coronavirus infections with other strains.
But scientists say it’s not time to panic just yet, as we don’t know for sure whether this variant of the new strain is resistant to vaccination or not. Identifying the variant is the first step for many in understanding how and if this variant is more transmissible – or, worse, if it might change the way the immune system responds to a vaccine.
Dean Blumberg, chief of pediatric infectious diseases and associate professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of California at Davis, told the Salon he would call the article a “preliminary report.” The coronavirus, he said, naturally mutates every two weeks or so.
“So you’re always going to have various mutations and different strains,” Blumberg said. “Some of these strains make mutations which will be minor and make very little difference in terms of how they infect people in terms of the rate or severity of infection, and others are larger.”
Blumberg echoed concerns about several of the mutations in the CAL.20C strain occurring primarily on the Spike protein.
“It could make them more efficient at binding and being transmitted and infecting cells,” Blumberg said. “But it’s not clear to me from reading this article whether the mutations make it a more suitable virus or not, and that’s why I’m still not sure what it means.”
Blumberg added that it was “good news” that we were finding these variations. Previously, the United States was behind schedule in coronavirus sequencing – hence the discovery of variant B 1.1.7 in the United Kingdom, which was preceded by its discovery in the United States. Additionally, it’s unclear whether this new variant is behind the Southern California push.
“We don’t know if it’s just a coincidence that it’s just the current variant that is being transmitted or we don’t know if it could be because this variant is transmitted more efficiently, which is why there is an increase in cases, ”Blumberg said. “We have to look at this.”
Other scientists agree.
“It may have helped with this surge, or just accompanied the trip,” Dr. Charles Chiu, a laboratory medicine specialist at the University of California-San Francisco, told the Los Angeles Times.
Regarding the prioritization of the variants and which ones are of most concern, Blumberg said, “there’s a lot to worry about” but like the variants found in the UK and South Africa, which we have more information at the moment. . Blumberg said more information was needed before the California variant reached the same level of concern.
“This variant, they don’t know much about it yet, so it doesn’t reach that level of concern,” he said. “Just because we don’t have that information.”
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