Coronavirus Texas: New York, California and Brazil COVID-19 variants detected in the Houston Methodist genome study

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) – The Houston area now faces at least five different variants of the COVID-19, with the addition of three from New York, Brazil and California.

The results of the study released on Thursday by the Houston Methodist infectious disease team showed that three additional variants were detected among the 20,453 coronavirus genomes in the area examined since the beginning of the pandemic.

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The Houston Methodist study is the first to identify the three new variants in the Houston metropolitan area.

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Variants of UK and South Africa have already been confirmed by city and county health officials, who described them as being more contagious.

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The findings come from the study of sequencing the leading genome of the hospital system. The Methodist team processes up to 1,700 samples per week. All four variants were detected in the most recent genome lots, the hospital told ABC13.

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