Newly mutated strains of the new coronavirus that have been noticed around the world, such as those that plague the United Kingdom and South Africa, cause them to dominate here in the USA as well. Now Americans have a new home to worry about – and public health experts suspect it could be the cause of the most recent boom in Southern California.
Recently, American scientists in California searched for signs of the British coronavirus variant, known as B 1.1.7, when they came across something else. Coronavirus strain B 1.1.7 has a transmission rate of 50 to 70 percent greater and can be more lethal, leading to studies to determine how much it has infected the U.S. population. While looking for B 1.1.7, however, scientists came across a new strain that has peculiar mutations, now called CAL.20C. According to an article published by researchers at Cedars-Sinai that has not yet been peer-reviewed, the new SARS-CoV-2 strain appears to account for at least 36 percent of COVID-19 cases in the Los Angeles area and 24 percent in Southern California in December 2020. This is related to a large increase in coronavirus infections in what was then Southern California.
“After an analysis of all the publicly available data and a comparison with our recent series, we see a dramatic growth in the relative percentage of the CAL.20C strain starting in November 2020,” the researchers told the newspaper writing. “The dominance of this tribe coincides with the increased rate of positivity seen in this region.”
In mid-January, scientific modeling estimated that one in three LA County residents was infected with the coronavirus. While the boom in Southern California appears to be dying, scientists are concerned that further mutation of the CAL.20C strain, called L452R, has a structural change similar to the variant found in South Africa.
As Salon reported earlier, variant 20C / 501Y.V2, also known as the B.1.351 lineage – which originated in Durban, South Africa – is of concern because the mutation on the so-called outer “Spike” of the virus or the proteins occur. on the outer layer of the virus that looks like nails like those on a sea urchin. Mutations to Spike have the potential to obscure the appearance of the virus on the immune system of someone who already has antibodies to coronavirus, which could make it easier to bypass immune protection. L452Rs may be similar to the South African strain in this regard.
“The S protein L452R mutation is within a known receptor binding domain that has been found to be highly resistant to certain monoclonal antibodies to the protein,” the Cedars-Sinai researchers wrote in the paper. They note that mutations in the ear protein may be “resistant” to antibodies from previous coronavirus infections with other strains.
But scientists say it is not yet time to panic, as we do not know for sure whether this variant of the new strain is resistant to vaccination or not. Identifying the variant is the first step of many to understand how and whether this variant is more transmissible – or, worse, if it can change how someone’s immune system responds to a vaccine.
Dean Blumberg, head of infectious childhood diseases and associate professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of California, Davis, told Salon he would describe this article as a ‘preliminary report’. The coronavirus naturally mutates every two weeks or so.
“So you’re always going to get different mutations and different strains,” Blumberg said. “Some of these strains make mutations that will be minor and will make very little difference in terms of how they infect people in terms of the rate or severity of the infection, and then others are more important.”
Blumberg has expressed concern about several mutations for the CAL.20C strain that occur primarily on the Spike protein.
“It can make them more efficient with the binding and the transmission and infection of cells,” Blumberg said. “But it is not clear to me when reading this paper whether the mutations make it a more suitable virus or not, and therefore I am not yet sure of the meaning.”
Blumberg added that it is ‘good news’ that we are finding these variants. Previously, the US was behind the sequence of the coronavirus – hence the discovery of variant B 1.1.7 in the United Kingdom, which was preceded by its discovery in the United States. In addition, it is unclear whether this new variant is behind the rise of Southern California.
“We do not know if it is just a coincidence that it is only the current variant that is being transmitted, or we do not know if it could be due to this more efficient dispatch of this variant; therefore there is an increase in cases,” Blumberg said, “We have to look at it.”
Other scientists agree.
“It may have contributed to this boom, or just gone along for the ride,” Dr. Charles Chiu, a laboratory medicine specialist at the University of California-San Francisco, told the Los Angeles Times.
Regarding the prioritization of variants and which one is the most important, Blumberg said: ‘there are many things to worry about’, but like the variants that occur in the UK and South Africa, which we are currently talking about more has information. Blumberg said more information is needed before the California variant reaches the same concern.
“This variant they do not yet know that much, so it does not rise to the level of concern,” he said. “Just because we do not have that information.”