Los Angeles County scientists have begun testing samples of coronavirus from local patients to determine whether a new, more contagious strain that is circulating in Britain has arrived, as some officials believe is likely amid a huge spike in infections.
The variant is a concern because it makes the virus easier to pass from one person to another, officials said. But, once a person has the virus, the variant does not seem to increase the likelihood that the person will die.
LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said that a public health laboratory has started doing gene sequencing to test samples of viruses collected in LA County, but it will take about a week to complete the process.
COVID-19 is going out of control in Los Angeles County and other parts of California, overloading hospitals and killing more people every day. On Thursday, LA County saw its highest number of COVID-19 deaths in a single day: 140.
The spread has been so impressive since Thanksgiving, when many families defied public health guidelines and gathered in large groups, that some wonder if anything about COVID has changed. Authorities believe the increase was exacerbated by holiday meetings, but are also concerned about other factors, including people going out to shop.
“When I spoke to the state Department of Public Health, they indicated that they were looking for and did not think they had seen” the new strain, Ferrer told The Times. “But you know, you have to know what you’re looking for. So, I think everyone at the moment who is seeing these types of outbreaks is obviously looking to see: ‘Do we have this particular variant?’ ”
LA Mayor Eric Garcetti said a new variant of the coronavirus may be a factor in the recent explosion of coronavirus cases, as well as other factors, including pandemic fatigue, holidays and winter weather, which may be more conducive to transmission.
“It happened in a devastating and fast way. Everyone I talked to said that this acceleration was beyond any model and any expectation, so people ask ‘What broke?’ and I must think that it is partly the tension that existed, ”said Garcetti in an interview with The Times on Wednesday.
A memo issued by the LA County Department of Public Health on Christmas Eve asked labs to analyze recent data from positive coronavirus tests to look for a specific gene detection pattern, as well as any unusual molecular patterns.
“Scientists are working to learn more about this variant to better understand how it can be easily transmitted and whether currently authorized vaccines will protect people against it. At the moment, there is no evidence that this variant causes more serious illness or an increased risk of death or that the available vaccines are not as effective, ”said the memo.
Scientists have identified this new, more infectious strain of coronavirus detected in Europe and South Africa, a discovery that has prompted government officials to renew blocking measures in much of England and has prompted several countries around the world to announce the ban. of flights from Britain.
The United States has stopped close to a ban, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that British airline passengers will need to have a negative coronavirus test before the flight.
The discovery of the new strain also prompted the British government to institute blocking measures, including travel restrictions and closing bars, gyms, theaters and hairdressers, in response to discoveries that genetic changes in the new strain could make the virus 70 % more transmissible. “
Governor Gavin Newsom said on Monday that California is testing thousands of virus samples regularly to identify any mutations in the virus’s genomic sequencing. “We haven’t seen anything related to a new strain yet,” said Newsom.
Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary of health and human services, said on Monday that the newly identified strain that circulates in the UK is essentially “a little stickier than the COVID virus we’ve seen so far.”
“For COVID to enter a human cell, it needs to attach to a receptor, a kind of gateway to a human cell,” said Ghaly. “And the new mutated COVID virus seems to bind a little bit more, a little more easily and enter the human body cell more easily than our current COVID virus that we have here mainly in California and the United States.”
The mutated strain makes people “more likely to become infected than if you were exposed to the current strain,” said Ghaly.
The new strain was not more virulent than the conventional version, which means that people do not necessarily get sicker. “But the fact of infecting more easily, it seems, is what concerns us,” said Ghaly.
If the most infectious strain of the virus manages to establish itself in California, it is unclear how it could affect the state’s efforts to contain the existing version of the virus. “The last thing we want to do is allow a new strain of COVID to come and spread more quickly or easily across the state,” said Ghaly.
A major concern with the new variant is that it could, in theory, have genetic changes that could withstand vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna – both of which are being launched in the U.S. – as well as three others right behind them.
A report last week, however, by British researchers found “no evidence that this variant … will make vaccines less effective”. Still, more studies are needed. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States government’s leading infectious disease specialist, told ABC News on Tuesday that he would not be surprised if the strain that worries Britain so much has already reached the United States.
“When you have that amount of propagation in a place like the UK … you really need to assume you’re already here, and it’s certainly not the dominant strain, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you were already here,” said Fauci.
Times staff writer Melissa Healy contributed to this report.