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The potentially more contagious new strain of coronavirus that is causing concern in Europe has been detected in Big Bear, bringing the total number of such cases in California to at least six, officials said on Friday.
The variant was found in two members of the same household who were tested for the virus on December 20, the San Bernardino County Public Health Department said in a press release. One of them had contact with a traveler who returned from Britain on December 11 and started showing symptoms of COVID-19 three days later, officials said.
An investigation was still underway to determine whether the traveler, also a resident of the Big Bear area, also had the variant or had infected others, county officials said on Saturday. Four more cases were identified this week in San Diego County.
The United States now requires travelers to provide proof of a negative coronavirus test before flying from the UK, but the rule only came into effect on Monday.
It came after news of the strain, known as B.1.1.7, broke in England before Christmas and was then confirmed in the United States for the first time on Tuesday in Colorado. Florida has also reported a case.
Experts say there is no evidence the variant is more deadly, causes more severe disease, or renders existing vaccines ineffective.
Yet a distinctive set of genetic alterations appear to facilitate the transmission of the virus from person to person and improve its ability to squeeze past the immune system’s defenses, sparking fears of causing an even faster rise in new cases as a slow roll-out of vaccination struggles. to get started and many hospitals are already overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients.
“Based on the information currently available, we know that the B.1.1.7 variant strain appears to spread more easily and faster,” San Bernardino County health official Dr Michael Sequeira said in a statement. . “Therefore, it is more important than ever to follow all safe practices.”
Scientists are not yet sure what the prevalence of the variant is in the United States, but it is increasingly clear that it may already be spreading in some communities.
The first U.S. case, a Colorado National Guard in his 20s who was sent to help a nursing home in Simla cope with an outbreak, had not traveled outside the country, officials said. A second member of the Guard was also believed to have the variant, authorities said.
Officials on Wednesday announced that the variant was first identified in California, in a San Diego County man in his 30s who also had no recent travel history. Tests were underway to determine if any of the man’s household contacts had the variant after that person was hospitalized with COVID-19, officials said.
The next day, county public health officials said they believed the strain was widespread in the area: Whole genome sequencing had confirmed three more cases in men who had not had contact with each. others.
The men – two in their 40s and one in their 50s – also had no interaction with the first confirmed case. Two of them had not traveled outside the country; the third has yet to be fully interviewed, officials said.
In all, all four cases of the variant have been detected in communities across San Diego County: La Mesa, Mission Beach, Otay Mesa, and the Carmel Mountain area, suggesting that it has already gained a foothold in the region. region, officials said.
“We believe that many more cases of the B.1.1.7 strain will be confirmed in the coming days and weeks,” Dr Eric McDonald, a county public health official, said in a statement.
Authorities have yet to find evidence of the variant in Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the state and hardest hit by the virus. But that doesn’t mean it’s not circulating, warned public health director Barbara Ferrer.
“We have thousands and thousands of people being tested every day, and we’re just able to sample a small number of those test results and do the gene sequencing,” Ferrer said in a briefing. earlier in the week.
Florida became the third state on Thursday to announce it had identified the variant, in a Martin County man in his 20s who had not recently traveled.
Experts say the development is no surprise: Viruses tend to mutate the more they replicate. Most mutations have no effect on how a virus works, but sometimes they can change how a virus behaves.
In this case, the changes may have made the virus up to 70% more transmissible, fueling a rapid spread of new cases in London and southern England, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said last month in announcing the renewal of lockdown measures across much of the country. The discovery also prompted other countries to restrict or ban travel from Britain.
Some scientists, however, are skeptical that the genetic changes in the strain make it more contagious and say more studies are needed to determine whether other factors, such as population density, different rates of carrier mask and varying compliance with social distancing rules could explain the rapid spread of the variant in England.
Times editors Melissa Healey, Rong-Gong Lin II, and Luke Money contributed to this report.
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