Researchers at two universities said Friday’s tests confirmed the first known cases of the so-called California strain of COVID-19 in Oregon and the additional genomic sequencing showed more evidence of the UK strain in various parts of the state.
Officials at Oregon State University and Oregon Health & Science University confirmed that their laboratories have detected these strains through genomic sequencing in recent weeks.
Earlier this week, the state had announced at least three positive cases involving the UK variant – with cases in Washington, Yamhill and Multnomah counties. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention says the variant is more easily transmitted, but the two vaccines on the market – Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna – must be effective against it.
State health leaders and researchers released the latest information on the California strain during a news conference on Friday morning, which also included good news: confirmed cases, hospitalizations and – at least last week – COVID-19-related deaths are decreasing. In addition, the most recent state modeling shows that if current forecasts hold, the average case rate in mid-February could be 420 cases diagnosed per day.
This is significantly less than records established last month, when daily cases exceeded 2,000 on December 4, and would return Oregon to levels of cases not seen since October.
Dr. Dean Sidelinger, an epidemiologist and state health officer, said the forecast was further evidence that Oregon residents are doing their best to comply with public health guidelines – how to wash your hands, distance yourself socially and wear masks.
He noted that weekly cases fell 40% – from more than 1,100 on average to about 712, similar to the decline across the country.
But Sidelinger noted that 25 of the state’s 36 counties remain at extreme risk of spreading the virus. He said that people need to keep their guard off because new variants or people relaxing their social distance may cause the numbers to rise again.
“We believe that the vaccines available will be effective against the variants,” said Sidelinger. “We need to persist,” he said of social detachment.
Oregon officials confirmed that the UK strain, which previously had only been detected in Portland, Yamhill County and Washington County, was present in Bend. The university collected wastewater samples from that region on December 22 and tests confirmed the mutant strain on January 21. Federal officials said it may be prevalent in the United States in March.
“We will see the variants of COVID-19 increase and decrease in abundance in our population over time, and the increase in a new variant is not necessarily a cause for alarm,” said Dr. Melissa Sutton, medical director of viral respiratory pathogens at Oregon Health Authority in a statement. “However, monitoring for variants is critical to our understanding of disease transmission, disease severity, evasion capacity, vaccine effectiveness and resistance to treatment.”
The state of Oregon has separately confirmed the presence of the California variant in wastewater samples from Albany, Forest Grove, Klamath Falls, Lincoln City and Silverton. He also detected this strain in five individuals on the school’s Corvallis campus.
The university performed genetic sequencing on more than 1,100 samples, it said in a statement. The majority, about 936 samples, were conducted on wastewater samples, while the rest were analyzed using the university’s COVID-19 test program.
The university said the California strain was first detected last March.
“It does not have the spike protein mutation that makes the other variants so worrying,” the school said in a statement, “but laboratory tests have shown that its mutation can reduce antibody binding, which could affect the effectiveness of COVID- 19 vaccine, although it is unclear how close laboratory tests will mimic real-world infections. “
Oregon Health & Science University also detected the two California cases – one in Washington County detected in a sample collected in November, and a second in an undetermined location from a late December sample.
“OHSU has also identified an isolated case – which shares similar L452R mutations – in Wasco County,” spokeswoman Tracy Brawley said in an email, using the genetic code now colloquially known as the California variant. “Looking closely to determine the impact.”
Another university lab just went into operation with genomic sequencing testing capabilities on Friday, which could help the state accelerate its testing capacity and help determine where new variants of COVID-19 may be emerging.
The University of Oregon said it performed its first genomic sequencing analysis Friday on COVID-10 samples. “The results have not been fully analyzed to determine whether any variants are within these samples,” said Kay Jarvis, a university spokesman by email. “The laboratory is ready and ready to assist the county and the state with genomic testing, if called upon.”
State health leaders and academics on Friday stressed the importance of knowing which strains of the virus are spreading, especially as the state is still vaccinating people and there are still months to reach any appearance of collective immunity. His statements were made more than a week after officials from the Oregon Health Authority said they did not know how many samples collected from people in Oregon were analyzed for the UK variant.
The researchers are unsure whether the California variant poses any additional risk of intensified transmission or death, but they said that detecting the variant and watching its spread is vital to understanding the mutation.
Meanwhile, Oregon’s latest modeling suggests that transmission has dropped to just 0.81 new infections for each active infection, significantly less than the rate in early December, when Governor Kate Brown and others warned that “the toughest days of the pandemic are yet to come ”.
Patrick Allen, the director of the state health authority, said that Oregon “remains ahead of most other states” in terms of the percentage of its population that has been vaccinated – 15th nationally – and the percentage of doses received that have been administered, in the 23rd.
He also noted that Oregon still has one of the lowest infection rates and number of deaths in the country.
– Andrew Theen; [email protected]; 503-294-4026; @andrewtheen