###
As California continues to face its worst wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials have more disturbing news: four cases of a new and potentially more infectious coronavirus variant have been detected in California.
The new strain, first detected in the United Kingdom, has also been seen in Colorado and Florida and in 33 other countries.
Last week, San Diego County reported having identified the new variant, called B.1.1.7, in a 30-year-old man with no travel history. Governor Gavin Newsom announced the discovery at an event broadcast live with Dr. Anthony Fauci, an important national voice in the pandemic. Over the weekend, San Diego County health officials reported three additional cases.
Fauci said the news was expected, as international travel is underway and viruses often mutate. “RNA viruses, they live off the mutation,” he said. “The more you replicate, the more you mutate.”
However, the lack of travel history in the San Diego case is an indicator that the new form of the virus is circulating in the community, health officials said.
“What is really important is that detecting that lineage here doesn’t really change what we need to do, unless we need to do it better,” Dr. Kristian Andersen, a specialist in infectious diseases and genomics at Scripps Research in San Diego, said at a news conference. This includes wearing masks and maintaining social distance.
Here’s what Californians need to know about the new coronavirus strain.
How was it discovered?
The new variant of the virus was first reported by the British public health agency after an outbreak of cases in the southeastern part of the country. The first two samples were discovered in Kent and London in September.
Although virus mutations are common, this particular strain stood out because it carries more genetic changes than normal, according to the researchers.
What is the concern with this coronavirus variant?
Public health officials say the new strain appears to be transmitted more easily than the standard form of the virus. This means that exposed people are more likely to be infected.
According to health officials in the UK, evidence shows that the infection is growing more rapidly in the geographic areas where this variant is found. A study by the Center for Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases in London shows that this specific strain is 56% more transmissible. The study is still being peer-reviewed.
Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary of health, explained this at a recent press conference: “For COVID to enter a human cell, it needs to connect to a receptor, a kind of gateway to a human cell,” he said. he. “And the new mutated COVID virus seems to bind a little bit more, a little more easily and enter the human body’s cell more easily than our current COVID virus.”
It is not yet clear how this mutant form of the virus contributed to the current rise in California. Officials said its prevalence here is probably still low. On December 21, Ghaly said that California had checked thousands of specimens daily in the past month for mutations.
“We are concerned with the unknown,” said Ghaly. “We are concerned that we are not sure how it affects large-scale efforts to contain and mitigate the virus as it exists now.”
What is California doing in response?
The California Department of Public Health said health care providers are collecting samples for genetic sequencing, and the state is analyzing samples suspected of being variant strains.
“As variants and mutations are found, this information is used to inform public health decisions and critical information is shared with the public,” said the department by email.
How widespread is the new strain?
After the new variant was detected in the UK, around 40 countries restricted travel from the UK. The variant has already been reported in France, Japan, Spain, Sweden and Canada, among other countries.
The first known case in the United States, in a Colorado National Guard in his 20s, was reported on December 30.
Two variants that share some mutations with the UK variant have also been reported in South Africa and Nigeria, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We know there is more. We don’t know how many, ”said Andersen, the infectious disease specialist in San Diego. “Its prevalence for the time being is relatively low.”
Will this make me sicker?
At the moment, there is no evidence that this new variant COVID has a higher mortality rate or causes more serious illnesses than the currently prevalent strain, according to the CDC. A recent study by the UK government compared patients infected with the new variant with those with the predominant strain and found no statistically significant differences in the severity of the disease, deaths or reinfection. Scientists around the world are still studying the UK variant, however, and more answers may come soon.
Will the currently authorized vaccines protect against this new strain?
Scientists believe so. Fauci told Newsom last week that the variant “does not seem to escape the protection afforded by vaccine-induced antibodies”. But scientists are testing the variant against currently authorized vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna.
AstraZeneca’s CEO, who is developing another COVID-19 vaccine candidate, told the London Times that the company’s scientists believe the vaccine will protect against the new variant. But some scientists believe that the UK variant, or future variants, may be more difficult to overcome by vaccines.
###
The coverage, translation and distribution of CalMatters COVID-19 are supported by generous donations from the Blue Shield of California Foundation, the California Wellness Foundation and the California Health Care Foundation.
CALmatters.org is a non-profit, non-partisan media venture that explains California’s policies and policies.