A mutated and more contagious strain of the coronavirus that caused deep concern when it appeared in the United Kingdom has arrived in California, Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Wednesday.
San Diego County officials said tests showed a 30-year-old resident contracted the strain in the first confirmed case of the California variant, a day after the sequence was first discovered on American soil in Colorado. The man from Southern California did not travel recently, officials said – a sign that, despite efforts to contain the mutation in Europe, it may already be spreading locally.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced the news during a virtual meeting with Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
There are no signs that the mutant strain causes more severe cases of the disease, say Fauci and other experts in contagious diseases, and early indications indicate that it can be combated with a number of emerging vaccines.
But a more transmissible strain could lead to more infections and deaths as the virus reaches the most vulnerable. And an increase in patients with COVID-19 could worsen the tension of an already taxed medical system, making people more likely to die from the virus if overwhelmed hospitals cannot provide the care they need.
The precautions people should take to prevent the spread of the latest strain are the same ones that officials have been recommending for months in the fight against coronavirus – wearing a face covering and avoiding contact with people outside the household. your.
“If we continue to do these things – no matter how transmissible this virus is, it will lose,” said John Swartzberg, professor emeritus of infectious diseases and vaccinology at Berkeley Public Health. “Don’t change anything, just do what you should be doing all the time.”
Fauci said mutations and new strains of the virus are expected during a pandemic.
“I’m not surprised you have one case and probably more cases in California. We will probably see reports from other states, “Fauci said. “I don’t think Californians should feel like it’s weird.”
Coronavirus is an RNA virus and such viruses “earn their living from mutation,” Fauci said. Most mutations do not change the way the virus works, but “from time to time, you get a mutation that affects the function of the virus.”
“It seems,” said Fauci, “from what we have learned from Britain and from what we learn here that this mutation actually makes the virus better to transmit from one person to another.”
Researchers are not yet sure exactly why this is, Swartzberg said. A major suspect is the “peak” proteins in the virus, which may have moved to bind more easily to the cells of a potential host. The mutation can also cause infected people to remove more of the virus.
The conclusion, Swartzberg said, is “that the (infected) person is more likely to spread it to another person.”
Fauci said people who were already infected with coronavirus also appear to have immunity to the strain. Scientists will evaluate the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccine for the new strain, Fauci said, but a single mutation is unlikely to impact the effectiveness of a vaccine.
The new strain did not avoid detection in diagnostic tests. At the national level, however, the United States has not conducted a robust operation to sequence viruses and verify genetic mutations. According to an analysis by the Washington Post, another 42 counties have sequenced more infections than the United States, despite the overwhelming number of cases in the country.
The Associated Press contributed to the report.