LOS ANGELES – Stanford University researchers said on Saturday that they found at least one case of a new variant of the coronavirus first detected in India, in northern California.
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The new variant has two mutations, including one found in the California strain, in the spiny protein to which the virus clings, according to Stanford Health Care spokeswoman Lisa Kim. The variant was found in a patient from the San Francisco Bay area by the school’s Clinical Virology Laboratory.
“We believe that this is the first case described with this variant in the United States,” she said in an e-mailed statement.
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The variant was first detected last month by Indian health officials, the Associated Press reported. Cases in India have been declining across the country since September, but started to return in the winter. More than 47,000 new infections were detected over a 24-hour interval, including 275 deaths, in March, according to the AP.
Covid-19 rates have been declining across California this spring, after a deadly winter wave that started in late November and did not decrease until after the new year. The drop in cases has allowed some of the state’s most populous counties, including Los Angeles, to begin easing restrictions and gradually reopening the economy.
California recorded more cases of coronavirus than any state in the country, with more than 3.5 million known infections and at least 58,000 deaths by Saturday, according to the health department.
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