As the total number of coronavirus infections in California approaches 3 million, health officials said on Sunday that a new strain – unlike a highly contagious variant first identified in the UK – is emerging more frequently across the country. state.
Researchers identified the strain in a dozen counties and associated it with several major outbreaks in Santa Clara County. The California Department of Public Health said it is still unclear whether the variant is highly contagious or is just being identified frequently as laboratory work becomes more sophisticated.
Santa Clara County labs that study changes in the virus genome sequence found the strain in samples from community test sites and outbreaks where “a very high number of exposed people contracted the virus,” officials said.
“This virus continues to mutate and adapt, and we cannot let our guard down,” said Dr. Sara Cody, Santa Clara County health officer and director of the Department of Public Health, in a prepared statement.
The new variant has also been reported in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Francisco, San Bernardino, San Diego, Humboldt, Lake, Mono, Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties.
Scientists say they do not know the prevalence of the strain, because viral genomic sequencing is not carried out across the state or country.
The variant carries three mutations in the spike protein, which the virus uses to bind and enter cells, said Dr. Charles Chiu, a virologist at UC San Francisco.
The two COVID-19 vaccines on the market in the United States, produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, train the body’s immune system to target the spike protein. This means that, in theory, virus mutations can alter the protein spike to a degree that vaccines become less effective.
Chiu said the researchers are prioritizing the study of the variant and working to determine whether the virus is “more infectious or affects vaccine performance”.
The variant is not the same as the highly contagious strain first identified in the UK last month. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Friday that the UK variant, known as B117, could become the dominant US coronavirus strain in March because it spreads so quickly.
Los Angeles County confirmed on Saturday its first case of the B117 variant on a man who spent time in the county but is now isolated in Oregon.
On Sunday, the total number of California residents who received a positive coronavirus test reached 2.96 million.
In LA County, authorities reported 108 deaths and 11,366 new positive cases on Sunday, bringing the total to 13,848 deaths and just over 1 million cases. Authorities warned that the data released on Sunday may be artificially low due to a delay in disclosure during the holiday weekend.
So many people died in Los Angeles County that authorities have temporarily suspended air quality regulations that limit the number of cremations. Health officials and the LA County coroner requested the change because the current death rate is “more than double the pre-pandemic years, causing hospitals, funeral homes and crematoriums to exceed capacity, without the ability to process the accumulation “on the south coast The air quality management district said on Sunday.
In at least a glimpse of hope, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in LA County dropped this week, from 7,910 on Monday to 7,498 on Sunday, below a peak of just over 8,000, health officials said. About 23% of hospitalized patients are in intensive care.
The proportion of people who tested for coronavirus and tested positive also fell slightly, from 16.5% on Monday to 14%. Officials say the drop could be a sign that infections are starting to fall after a sudden spike after the holiday.
Meanwhile, in Orange County, health officials reported 1,448 new cases and 47 deaths. The county total now stands at 210,813 cases and 2,367 deaths.