California officials on Monday revealed more details about the new homemade coronavirus strain that could be partly responsible for a sharp rise in cases and deaths in the state.
Two research groups discovered variant B1429 while searching for the highly contagious variant B117, which was linked to the United Kingdom, officials told a news conference.
The California mutation – which is said to be in the same “family tree” as the UK variant – has now been reported in 456 cases in Golden State, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.
But the governor warned that the actual number of cases is probably much higher.
About a quarter of the viral samples collected late last year in Los Angeles and Northern California by two different groups contained the new strain, according to the LA Times.
Newsom said the state is still working to see if strain B1429 leads to more serious infections.
“We are still working, is COVID a unique option in California? Or is it something else? Again, we’re still working on this. We are working through its virulence, we are working through its transmissibility to investigate more understanding “, said the democratic governor.
Health officials are still determining whether the new options are more contagious than the usual strain, as is its British counterpart.
“We are worried about that [B1429] it attaches to the human cell a little more than the natural virus we were dealing with. This could make it more contagious, we’re still not sure, we’re looking at it, “said Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary of health and human services.
Cases have risen recently, with 35 percent of a total of 37,121 coronavirus deaths in California coming in the past month, according to Johns Hopkins Medical Center.
Ghaly said a combination of holiday travel and the “curve” of the new variant could be to blame.
“Look, I’ve grown up and played sports my whole life, [it] it really depended on trying to understand my opponent, “said Ghaly.
“We have an opponent we have never seen before. We don’t have any game movies on COVID-19, we don’t know what it will do, so we have to constantly watch the songs from that day to understand what will happen tomorrow. ”
Despite warnings, Newsom on Monday lifted a state order to stay at home, which had been imposed last month
Officials say it’s unclear if a new vaccine is needed to fight the B1429 strain, but urge Californians to continue to be inoculated with current vaccines.