A new variant of the coronavirus has been found in the California bay area.
The Stanford Clinical Virology Lab, through genomic sequencing, identified and confirmed a case of the emerging variant, which originated in India, according to a Stanford Health Care spokesman on Sunday. At least seven presumed cases of the Indian variant have also been found.
The variant is being labeled a “double mutant” because it carries two mutations in the virus that helps it attach to cells, the reports say.
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“If you are in an elevator with someone infected with the variant, you are more likely to be infected with that variant,” said Stanford Clinical Virology Laboratory director Dr. Ben Pinsky, according to Area FOX 2 of San Francisco Bay.
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong of UCSF, an infectious disease specialist, called the variant “less forgiving”.
He noted that the variant may be more infectious because it accounts for 20% of cases in the Indian state of Maharashtra, which has been hit hard. The cases there have increased by 50% in the past week, he said.
“It also makes sense that it is more transmissible from a biological perspective, since the two mutations act in the domain of binding to the virus receptor, but there have been no official transmission studies so far,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Chin-Hong added that it is too early to know whether the variant – first detected by Indian health officials this year – can cause reinfections or is more resistant to the vaccine’s antibodies. One of the mutations was similar to a variant first detected in California. Another mutation was found in variants detected for the first time in Brazil and South Africa.
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“This Indian variant contains two mutations in the same virus for the first time, seen previously in separate variants,” said Chin-Hong. “As we know that the affected domain is the part that the virus uses to enter the body and that the California variant is already potentially more resistant to some antibodies in the vaccine, it looks like there is a chance that the Indian variant will do that too. “
While Chin-Hong said the studies have yet to confirm this, he felt that “optimistic” vaccinations could work based on the known efficacy against variants originating in South Africa and California. Chin-Hong added that the UK variant, B.1.1.7, is more transferable.
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“I, from the bottom of my heart, believe that vaccines will still be effective against this new Indian variant based on some of the information we have received about even frightening variants, such as the South African variant and how the Pfizer vaccine is really effective against that, “Chin-Hong told FOX 2.” The sun is shining on California, our cases are closed. We have made great progress. But, we need to be safe, we need to keep our guard up. ”
The Associated Press contributed to this report