A new, highly contagious strain of coronavirus was identified in southern California on Wednesday, marking a worrying discovery that occurred when the state surpassed 25,000 deaths in the pandemic and braced itself for another outbreak of post-holiday cases.
The coronavirus variant, known as “B117” and found for the first time in the United Kingdom, is believed to be up to 70% more transmissible than previous strains.
The first case in the United States was found in Colorado on Tuesday, but public health officials believe it has probably been circulating undetected in the country for some time.
“Even though it has only been identified now, I suspect it has existed at least since September,” said John Swartzberg, an infectious disease specialist at UC Berkeley.
The California case was identified in a patient in San Diego County who had no known travel history, meaning that the person was exposed to tension in the community. Public health officials are investigating the case.
“I’m not surprised that you have a case, and probably more cases,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease specialist, in a virtual meeting with Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday afternoon, during the which the California case was announced. “I don’t think Californians should think this is strange. This is expected. “
Still, it was discouraging news, as the most populous parts of the state, including all of Southern California, reported their 13th consecutive day of overcapacity in intensive care beds. Many facilities are running out of capacity, doubling patients in rooms and caring for the very sick in converted gift shops and waiting areas.
In the Bay Area, the availability of intensive care dropped sharply on Wednesday, dropping to 7.5% and offering a grim reminder that even with coronavirus cases appearing to stabilize across the region, pressure on hospitals remains intense . The hospital’s situation is likely to get worse due to peaks in post-Christmas and New Year’s Eve cases.
Deaths also continue to increase. The state reported a new daily record of 442 deaths on Tuesday. December was the deadliest month in the pandemic so far, with almost four times as many deaths from COVID-19 as reported in November.
“People are seeing small reductions in general cases, but that is not what we see across the state,” said Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary of health and human services, at a news conference on Wednesday. Hospitals in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley “will need to prepare for additional patients coming from Hanukkah and Christmas, and … what we expect is a much lower degree of transmission during the New Year holiday.
“These hospitals are in a difficult situation at the moment,” he said.
New strain of virus
The new variant of the coronavirus may make it even more difficult to control the increase in cases in the state because it is much more infectious, public health experts said. However, there is no evidence that it causes more serious illness.
“There is absolutely no evidence to date that it causes more serious illness,” said Swartzberg. “This does not mean that we will not find evidence. But I don’t think that will happen, because we would have noticed. “
The fact that the Colorado case was reported on a man who had no travel history helps to confirm the theory that “this variant has been transmitted from person to person in the United States,” according to Dr. Henry Walke, incident manager at CDC.
While it does not appear to cause more serious illness, he said, the variant is more contagious, potentially putting “even more pressure on our highly overburdened health systems”.
Swartzberg said it is possible that the undetected strain is one of the main factors contributing to the current increase in cases in California.
“Why did things start to speed up in October?” he said. “This raises the question. Could this new strain be another reason why it exploded? “
Cases and deaths
The rate of new cases per 100,000 residents dropped across the state and the bay area this week, hovering just under 100 for California and about 50 for the bay area.
For the state, this is still well above the national average of around 60 cases per 100,000 residents per day. But it is an improvement over last week, when California had an average of 115 cases per 100,000 residents per day.
California reported a new record of 66,811 cases on Monday, but much of this was due to delays in reporting over Christmas. In fact, many of the cases reported this week are probably less accurate than normal due to counties that slowed down operations between Christmas and New Year.
Across the state, 25,033 people have died of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, including 2,478 in the bay area. Despite the large number of deaths reported this month, California still has one of the lowest mortality rates in the country: about 64 deaths per 100,000 residents since the start of the pandemic, compared with a national average of about 100 deaths per 100,000 .
Hospitals and intensive care
The availability of ICUs across the state remained at 0% on Wednesday for the sixth consecutive day.
There are still open ICU beds in the state, but the California Department of Public Health uses a complex algorithm to determine capacity, based in part on the number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized. This algorithm, combined with so many hospitals in hard-hit parts of the state being well above capacity, means that the state’s net availability is zero.
The ICU availability in the Bay Area fell dramatically overnight, from 10.4% on Tuesday to 7.5%. Greater Sacramento had about 17.4% availability of ICUs and the sparsely populated northern California region had 31.5% availability.
About 2,050 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the bay area on Tuesday – the first time that number has exceeded 2,000 since the start of the pandemic, and more than double the peak of the summer peak. About 20,612 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 across the state.
Things can get worse as the state sees an increase in cases resulting from trips and meetings over Christmas and New Year.
“Although things are looking bad now, they are going to get much, much worse in January,” said Swartzberg. “It is an easy prediction to make. We know that traveling is like throwing gasoline on a fire. We saw what happened on Thanksgiving Day. January is going to be hell. “
Erin Allday and Aidin Vaziri are editors of the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected], [email protected] Twitter: @erinallday, @SFMusic