Two independent research groups have published findings that confirm what many scientists have long suspected: the United States has its own unique COVID-19 viral variants that are distinct from the strains in the UK and South Africa, which made headlines in recent years. weeks.
On Wednesday, researchers at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center announced two distinct and newly identified variants. The next day, researchers at Southern Illinois University said they found a variant that may have appeared months ago and spread quickly across the country. The variant is probably the same or similar to one of the variants identified by the Ohio researchers.
Although viruses mutate constantly, these mutations are not inherently dangerous, experts warned. More scientific experiments are needed to show whether the newly identified American variants are more transmissible, more deadly or can impact the vaccine.
And the researchers predicted that even more variants could be identified in the coming weeks, as more scientists start looking for them.
“This should be a warning that we are not doing enough genomic surveillance,” said Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and associate researcher at the Columbia University School of Public Health and Immunity Center.
“We will see many of these articles coming out,” said Rasmussen, who was not involved in any of the studies. “If [the variants] they are associated with increased transmissibility or it remains to be seen. “
Since the emergence of new variants around the globe, it has been feared that they will cause more serious illness and death, be more transmissible and render vaccines ineffective. It started with variants identified in the UK and then in South Africa, both considered more communicable, but no longer deadly. But they are unlikely to harm current vaccines, according to preliminary research.
Researchers at Southern Illinois University are calling this American variant 20C-US. The variant is not new, only recently identified. Its origin was traced back to a patient sample in Texas in May 2020. Since then, the variant appears to have spread across the country. According to Dr. Keith T. Gagnon, one of the main researchers in the study released by Southern Illinois, the 20C-US already compromises about 50% of the country’s samples. It is currently common in the Upper Midwest, which may be the reason that Ohio researchers have detected a surprisingly similar variant.
Dr. Daniel Jones, a leading author of the Ohio State study, told ABC News that these variants may be of the same lineage, but more research on each is needed.
While some researchers, including Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House Task Force, speculated that there may be a variant of the US circling the country, these two studies are the first solid evidence of one.
Gagnon said that scientists in the U.S. took months to identify this variant because the U.S. is not systematically monitoring and tracking the constantly changing genetic makeup of COVID-19 samples collected from patients.
Gagnon also said that it is possible that the 20C-US variant is more transmissible, especially with increasing infections in autumn and winter. The variant could have been lucky and gained space, as people were spending more time indoors and seeing family and friends on vacation, without the proper social distance and wearing a mask.
With several vaccines available now, there is a fear that this new US variant will make vaccines ineffective. But so far there is no evidence that the mutations affect the effectiveness of vaccines.
“Here it was, under our noses for months,” said Gagnon, meaning that the volunteers who were vaccinated in the big tests of late-stage vaccines were probably exposed to it and most were protected.
“It doesn’t look like this is going to hinder vaccines,” added Gagnon. Ohio state researchers agreed to these sentiments at a news conference earlier this week.
The other variant that Ohio researchers found was found in only one patient. It has similar mutations seen in the UK and variants in South Africa, but has not been associated with travel and has developed independently here in the USA. It is not clear how much of the population has this variant and whether it will be important.
Both groups recommended keeping calm and waiting for further experimental studies to determine what these variants will do.
“We are not ready for an overreaction,” said Peter Mohler, scientific director and co-author of the study at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center.
“We want to make sure that we study these [variants] in the lab and get very good data ”to determine whether they alter transmission and mortality, he added.
But the researchers also warn that the longer COVID-19 is available, the greater the likelihood of mutations and variants. And each time we will have to determine whether the variants are more transmissible or deadly.
Sean Llewellyn, MD, Ph.D., is a resident physician in family medicine at the University of Colorado and a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit. Sony Salzman is the unit’s coordinating producer.