On Monday, there were four confirmed cases in Southern California of the most contagious new strain of SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes Covid-19. On Tuesday, authorities announced that that number had jumped to at least 26.
Twenty-four confirmed and four probable cases of the most contagious strain of SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19, have been identified in San Diego County, the Health and Human Services Agency of that region announced on Tuesday. .
The 24 confirmed San Diego cases of the variant that first appeared in the United Kingdom – known as B.1.1.7 – along with two previously identified in San Bernardino County, bring the total from Southern California to at least 26. According to health officials, infections seem almost equally divided between men and women. The new strain is, by an estimate, 50-70% more infectious than the widely used ore variant.
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The rapid increase in hospitalizations in the UK due to B.1.1.7 forced that country’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, to lock up the entire country on Monday.
The UK’s Covid-19 curve is now almost vertical. pic.twitter.com/ZtRCJRDzwA
– George Eaton (@georgeeaton) January 3, 2021
Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon also announced a blockade in his country on Monday. Wales and Northern Ireland are already under strict restrictions.
The new strain has been identified in at least 33 countries and four U.S. states, including Colorado, Florida, Georgia, New York and California.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said the state is analyzing selected samples through genome sequencing, but has yet to discover any B.1.1.7 infections.
The new Southern California total includes at least 24 cases confirmed by complete genome sequencing and four probable cases that are directly linked to confirmed cases and have positive nucleic acid diagnostic tests, but have not yet been sequenced.
The two dozen new cases of variants were confirmed on January 4 from samples collected from December 27 to December 31 and tested at the San Diego-based Helix laboratory and its partner Illumina under a surveillance project at the Control Center. and Disease Prevention.
There were no deaths from COVID-19 related to B.1.1.7, but a woman had to be hospitalized. She is now at home recovering.
The 24 newly infected Californians are believed to have no travel history related to the infection. They are said to come from 19 different families, but investigations and contact tracking are ongoing.
The new cases were identified in San Diego, Chula Vista, La Mesa and Lakeside. Infections involve several age groups. While the four youngest cases are under 10 years old and the oldest is over 70, the average age of variant cases to date is 36, the same as the overall average of all confirmed cases in the county to date.
These data seem to contradict a recent UK study that seemed to indicate that B.1.1.7 spread more easily among younger people, but, of course, the sample size in California so far is miniscule.
“The fact that these cases have been identified in various parts of the region shows that this strain of the virus may be spreading rapidly,” said Wilma Wooten, MD, MPH county public health officer. “People should be extra careful to avoid contagion and the spread of COVID-19, especially this variant, which research has shown to be more contagious.”
The variant was first identified on December 30 in a San Diego man in his 30s. He had no apparent travel history. Three additional cases were announced on December 31. No B.1.1.7 infections have been identified in Los Angeles County yet, but as of Tuesday, LA health officials had tested only 80 samples of 840,611 positive Covid-19 cases identified to date in the county.
LA Director of Public Health, Dr. Barbara Ferrer, said Angelenos should assume that the new variant is loose in the county.
San Diego County has asked all test labs that have the ability to identify suspected cases of the new strain to refer samples for genome sequencing to determine if they are in fact cases of the variant. Local doctors were also asked to forward positive tests to Covid-19 for patients with a history of travel to the UK or other places abroad where variants were detected.
“We are doing everything we can to determine how quickly this new strain is spreading, especially as the daily case count in the region has increased dramatically in recent weeks,” said Wooten.
There is also a variant known as 501.V2, which was first identified in South Africa. As B.1.1.7, it appears to be more infectious. The strain is spreading in South America and Brazil, although it is summer in the southern hemisphere, a season that has traditionally seen less spread of the virus.
While it is suspected that current vaccines will provide protection against strains in the UK and South Africa, there is concern that antibiotic drugs frequently used to treat Covid-19 are less effective against the latter.