California officials on Monday revealed more details about the new homemade coronavirus strain that may be partly responsible for a sharp increase in cases and deaths in the state.
Two research groups discovered the B1429 variant while searching for the highly contagious B117 variant linked to the UK, officials said at a press conference.
Governor Gavin Newsom said the mutation in California – in the same “pedigree” as the British variant – was reported in the Golden State in 456 cases.
But the governor warned that the actual number of cases is likely to be much higher.
About a quarter of the viral samples collected by two different groups in Los Angeles and Northern California late last year contain the new strain, according to the LA Times.
Newsom said the state is still working to see if the B1429 strain leads to worse infections.
‘We’re still working on a COVID variant unique to California? Or is it something else? Again, we’re still working on it. “We work through its ominousness, we work through its portability to explore more understanding,” the Democratic governor said.
Health officials are still determining whether the new variant shares are more contagious than the usual strain, such as the UK counterpart.
‘We are concerned about that [B1429] attaches a little more to the human cell than the natural virus we were dealing with. It could be contagious, we’m not sure yet, we’re looking into it, ‘said Mark Ghaly, California’s Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Cases have increased recently, with Johns Hopkins Medical Center hitting 35 percent of the 37,121 coronavirus deaths in California in the past month.
Ghaly said a combination of holiday travel and the ‘curveball’ of the new variant could be blamed.
‘Look, I’ve grown up playing sports all my life, [it] really depends on trying to understand my opponent, ”Ghaly said.
‘We have an opponent we’ve never seen before. We have no feature film on COVID-19, we do not know what it is going to do, so we have to constantly look at the plays of the day to understand what is going to come tomorrow. ”
Despite the warnings, Newsom on Monday lifted the stay-at-home order, which was introduced last month
Officials say it is unclear whether a new vaccine is needed to fight the B1429 strain, but insist Californians are still being vaccinated with the current shots.