Two independent research groups have published findings that have confirmed what many scientists have long suspected: the US has its own unique COVID-19 viral variant that is distinct from the British and South African lineage that has made headlines in recent weeks.
On Wednesday, researchers from Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center announced two different, newly identified variants. The next day, researchers at Southern Illinois University said they found a variant that may have originated months ago and spread rapidly across the country. The variant is probably the same or similar to one of the variants the researchers identified in Ohio.
While viruses are constantly mutating, experts have been warned that these mutations are not inherently dangerous. More scientific experiments are needed to show whether the newly identified American variant is more transmissible, more lethal or that it may affect the vaccine.
And researchers have predicted that even more variants could be identified in the coming weeks as more scientists go looking for them.
“It must be a wake-up call that we are not doing enough genomic monitoring,” says Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and co-researcher at the Center for Infection and Immunity at the School of Public Health of Columbia University.
“We’re going to see a lot of these papers come out,” said Rasmussen, who was not involved in either of the two studies. “Or [the variants] is associated with increased portability or which has not yet been seen. ‘
Since the emergence of new variants around the world, there is a fear that it will cause serious diseases and deaths, become more transmissible and make the vaccines ineffective. It first started with variants identified from the UK and then South Africa, both of which are more transmissible but not more deadly. But it is unlikely that it will undermine current vaccines, according to much preliminary research.
Researchers at Southern Illinois University call this American variant 20C-US. The variant is not new, but has just been identified. Its origins have been traced back to a patient sample in Texas from May 2020. Since then, the variant appears to have swept across the country. According to dr. Keith T. Gagnon, one of the lead researchers in the study, which was released by Southern Illinois, 20C-US now endangers about 50% of the samples in the country. It is currently widespread in the Upper Midwest, and therefore researchers from Ohio State can detect a strikingly similar variant.
Dr. Daniel Jones, one of the lead authors of the Ohio State study, told ABC News that these variants may be of the same sex, but that more research on each is needed.
While some researchers, including dr. Deborah Birx, of the White House Task Force, speculating that there may be an American variant around the country, these two studies are the first evidence of one.
Gagnon said it took scientists in the U.S. months to identify this variant because the U.S. does not monitor and monitor the ever-changing genetic makeup of COVID-19 samples collected from patients.
Gagnon also said the 20C American variant is more transmissible, especially with the increase in infections in the fall and winter. The variant could have been happier and gained foothold because people spent more time indoors and saw family and friends for the holidays without properly drawing social distance and wearing masks.
Since there are now several vaccinations available, there is a fear that this new American variant will make the vaccines ineffective. But so far there is no evidence that the mutations affect the effectiveness of the vaccines.
“Here it has been under our noses for months,” Gagnon said, meaning that volunteers vaccinated in the big, late-stage vaccination trials were likely exposed to it and that the majority were protected.
“It does not look like it will get in the way of vaccines,” Gagnon added. Ohio State researchers agree with the sentiments in their press conference earlier this week.
The other variant that Ohio State researchers discovered was found in only one patient. It has similar mutations seen in the United Kingdom and South African variants, but is not associated with travel and was developed independently here in the United States.
Both groups recommended staying calm and waiting for more experimental studies to determine what these variants would do.
“We are not ready to respond,” said Peter Mohler, chief scientist and co-author of the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center study.
‘We want to make sure we study it [variants] in the lab and get very good data ”to determine if it changes transmission and mortality rate, he added.
But researchers also warn that the longer COVID-19 exists, the more likely there are mutations and variants. And each time we will have to determine if the variants are more transmissible or lethal.
Sean Llewellyn, MD, Ph.D., is a family physician at the University of Colorado and a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit. Sony Salzman is the coordinating producer of the unit.