Researchers from two universities said Friday that tests confirmed the first known cases of the so-called California strain of COVID-19 in Oregon, and that additional genomic sequences showed more evidence of the British strain in various parts of the state.
Officials from Oregon State University and Oregon Health & Science University have confirmed that their laboratories have been locating the strains for the past few weeks through genomic sequencing.
Earlier this week, the state announced at least three positive cases involving the British variant – with cases in the provinces of Washington, Yamhill and Multnomah. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the variant is easier to transmit, but the two vaccines on the market – Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna – must be effective against it.
State health leaders and researchers released the latest information about the California tribe during a news conference Friday morning, which also contains good news: confirmed cases, hospitalizations and – at least in the past week – COVID-19 deaths are declining. The latest state modeling also shows that, if current forecasts hold, the average fall rate by mid-February could be 420 cases per day.
This is significantly lower than the records set last month, when daily affairs darkened 2,000 on December 4, and Oregon would return to the case levels not seen since October.
Dr. Dean Sidelinger, the state’s epidemiologist and health official, said the prediction is more evidence that Oregon residents are doing their best to meet public health guidelines. – like washing hands, taking social distance and wearing masks.
He noted that weekly business declined by 40% – from more than 1,100 on average to about 712, similar to declines across the country.
However, Sidelinger noted that 25 of the state’s 36 provinces are at extreme risk of spreading the virus. He said people need to be vigilant because the new variants or people removing their social distance can cause the numbers to rise again.
“We believe that available vaccines will be effective against the variants,” Sidelinger said. “We have to keep going,” he said of the social distance.
Officials in the state of Oregon have confirmed that the British tribe, previously found only in Portland, Yamhill County and Washington County, was present in Bend. The university tested wastewater from the region on December 22 and the tests confirmed that the mutant strain is January 21. Federal officials said it could be dominant in America by March.
“We will see COVID-19 variants rise and fall through our population over time, and the emergence of a new variant is not necessarily worrying,” said Dr. Melissa Sutton, medical director of respiratory viral pathogens in Oregon, said in a statement. “However, monitoring variants is critical to our understanding of disease transmission, disease severity, ability to test, vaccine efficacy, and resistance to treatment.”
Oregon State separately confirmed the presence of the California variant in wastewater samples from Albany, Forest Grove, Klamath Falls, Lincoln City and Silverton. It also detected the tension in five individuals on the school’s Corvallis campus.
The university has done genetic sequencing on more than 1,100 samples, according to a statement. The majority, about 936 samples, were done on wastewater samples, while the rest were analyzed through the university’s COVID-19 testing program.
The university said the California tribe was first tracked down in March.
“The mutation in the ear protein does not have the other variants as worrying,” the school said in a statement, “but laboratory tests have shown that its mutation can reduce antibody binding, which could affect the effectiveness of COVID-19. vaccine, although it is unclear how closely the laboratory tests will mimic infections in the real world. ”
Oregon Health & Science University also tracked down the two cases in California – one in Washington County observed from a sample taken in November, and a second from an indefinite location and from a sample taken in late December.
“OHSU has also identified an isolated case – which shares similar mutations in L452R – in Wasco County,” spokeswoman Tracy Brawley said in an email using the genetic code now commonly known as the California variant . “Watch it closely to determine the impact.”
Another university lab just came online Friday to test genomic sequencing tests, which could help the state speed up its testing capability and further determine where new COVID-19 variants could appear.
The University of Oregon said it conducted its first genomic sequence analysis on COVID-10 samples on Friday. “The results have not been fully analyzed to determine if any variants exist within the samples,” University spokeswoman Kay Jarvis said in an email. “The laboratory is able and ready to assist the province and state with genomic tests if called upon to do so.”
State health leaders and academics on Friday generated the importance of knowing which strains of the virus are spreading, especially as the state continues to vaccinate people and stay months away from the occurrence of herd immunity. Their statements come more than a week after Oregon Health Authority officials said they did not know how many samples were collected from Oregon residents for the British variant.
Researchers are not sure if the California variant poses an additional risk for transmission or death, but they said the detection of the variant and its distribution are essential to understanding the mutation.
Meanwhile, Oregon’s latest modeling indicates that the transmission dropped to just .81 new infections for each active infection, significantly lower than the rate in early December, when government warned Kate Brown and others that the “toughest days of the pandemic were yet to come. . “
Patrick Allen, director of the state health authority, said Oregon “remains ahead of most other states” in terms of the percentage of population vaccinated – 15th country – and the percentage of doses administered, on 23rd.
He also noted that Oregon still has one of the country’s lowest infection rates and death rates in the country.
– Andrew Theen; [email protected]; 503-294-4026; @andrewtheen