CA crosses 3M Covid-19 infections as new virus strains cause concern – deadline

In the past week, there has been a lot of good news for virus-stricken California. The graph showing the number of new cases in the state looks like a downward spiral, from 42,655 on Thursday to 30,699 on Saturday to 22,403 on Wednesday. This is a decrease of almost 50% in less than a week.

The director of the state’s public health, dr. Mark Ghaly, pointed out that ‘ray of light’ was Tuesday. “For the first time in some time, our numbers have been declining,” he said before warning residents not to wait. That warning may seem justified.

On Wednesday, the state recorded its second-highest number of Covid-19 deaths ever, at 694. The benchmark remained stubbornly high, even though overall cases, hospitalizations and virus-related ICU use have declined. However, mortality is a backward indicator and even that number could start to decline soon.

A greater concern may be by virus variants which in turn may cause the numbers to rise across the board, even as the state makes progress. Most important are the new virus strains recently discovered in the state.

Over the weekend, the Los Angeles Department of Public Health announced that the much-discussed British variant of Covid-19, known as B.1.1.7, had been identified in the region. It is estimated that B.1.1.7 is up to 50% more transmissible than the more widespread form of the virus. The number of LA residents infected with the British variant is thought to be still small.

Then, on Monday, the California Department of Public Health revealed that another lesser-known tribe had also spread across the country.

It is suspected that the variant called CAL.20C originated in the state in July, but only began to spread significantly in November.

According to the New York Times, CAL.20C was found in more than half of California test samples genomically analyzed in mid-January. It should be noted that the number of samples analyzed is much smaller than the total number of daily Covid-19 tests in the state.

But Eric Vail, director of molecular pathology at Cedars-Sinai, told the Times that CAL.20C may have played a role in the increase in cases that overwhelmed hospitals in Southern California earlier this month. “I’m pretty confident that it’s a more contagious strain of the virus,” said Dr. Vail said.

Originally, researchers identified a mutation in the standard strain virus strain they named L452R. Dr. Vail and others soon realized that the samples they saw carrying the L452R mutation also consistently contained four other mutations. Because they thought it was a unique variant, they identified any sample with all five mutations as CAL.20C.

Dr. Charles Chiu, a virologist and professor of laboratory medicine at UCSF, who in collaboration with state authorities tested genetic sequencing of California samples to identify new variants, said Sunday that very early indications are that the L452R is less susceptible to current approved vaccines, but much more research is needed.

Asked if he was concerned about the possibility, dr. Ghaly said, “Absolutely,” but noted that it was still too early to make any statements with any certainty.