Easier to distribute Covid Variant in US vaccine enhancers

Photographer: Eric Lee / Bloomberg

A widespread variant of Covid-19 detected for the first time in the US last week could intensify the increase in the virus, if it has not already happened, increasing the urgency for a faster and more effective vaccine shot.

Only three states – Colorado, California and Florida – have has identified cases of the mutated strain that has been raging in the UK for months. But U.S. health officials say they do not yet know how far the variant has traveled in the U.S., or what it could mean for the future.

“I suspect it’s more widespread than we know,” said Michelle Barron, senior medical director of infection prevention and control at UCHealth, a healthcare system with a dozen hospitals and hundreds of clinics in Colorado. ‘It’s a function of’ if you search for it you will find it. ”

The discovery of the mutant strain in the US comes because the attempt to vaccinate most Americans is hampered by ineffective coordination and a lack of federal support for states and health care systems. According to Bloomberg, more than 4.28 million Americans have been vaccinated since Saturday vaccine detection, which is far less than the 20 million doses predicted by US health officials by the end of 2020.

Meanwhile, the number of infections is on the rise, with nearly 231,000 new cases reported in the U.S. on Thursday before the holiday weekend, when reporting could be sporadic. Four states – including New York and California – have generally surpassed 1 million infections and more than 350,000 Americans have died.

“It’s a race, and this variant has made the whole challenge more formidable,” said Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California. “Whatever we saw in 2020 in terms of a challenging virus, it will be taken to a new level.”

Distribution of vaccines was a challenge for an American health care system strained by a simultaneous increase in infections. State and local governments are struggling with complicated logistics to keep the shots cold, deciding who should get early access, and convincing skeptics of vaccines.

To increase the available vaccine, the US government is considering reducing the dose by half Monernaf Slaoui, Operation Warp Speed’s chief scientific officer, on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” He said there was evidence showing that half the dose was the same age.

Slaoui’s comments come in response to a question about the UK’s decision to get as many people as possible their first dose of vaccine. Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, while a second dose may be delayed. He said such a move would be a mistake for the US because it is not supported by trial data.

CDC studies

Meanwhile, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is currently trying to model what effect the variant could have on the accelerated spread, said Kristen Nordlund, spokeswoman for the agency. At the moment, however, there are ‘we have no results’, Nordlund said in an email.

Prior to November, only a number of U.S. cases were followed up, a laboratory procedure that could determine the genetic makeup of the pathogen as it moved through the population. Since then, however, the CDC has launched a national program to detect new strains, said Greg Armstrong, director of the CDC’s advanced molecular detection program.

The CDC scales now to According to Armstrong, 750 samples work on its own each week, and the agency works with laboratories across the country to map the genetic material of approximately 1,750 virus samples weekly.

According to Henry Walke, CDC’s Covid-19 incident manager, the agency is also investigating whether the mutations could make existing treatments less effective. However, there is no reason that measures such as wearing a mask and social distance would be less effective in preventing the transmission of the new strain, he said during a call with reporters last week.

Virute mutate

Viruses have the ability to be altered by mutations that occur naturally while repeating and circulating in their hosts. Some develop, like flu, rapidly with thousands of mutations and different sexes, while others are more stable.

The new variant, scientifically known as B.1.1.7, contains a large number of mutations, which are unusual, said Andy Pekosz, director of the Center for Emerging Viruses and Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins University. A particular concern is the change in the protein of the vein, which binds to human cells so that the virus can gain access.

Scientists suspect that these mutations make it easier to attach the protein. The new strain is thought to be 57-70% more transmissible than other strains of the virus.

British appearance

In the UK, the new variant was responsible for 62% of Covid-19 infections in London in the week ending December 9, compared to 28% in early November, according to Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia’s Norwich School of Medicine. Cases have also been identified in more than a dozen other countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Singapore and South Korea.

According to Colorado, political science director Emily Travanty, political scientists are trying to perform complete genetic sequencing on any specimens showing signs of the British variant. Samples are labeled as only two of the three genes affected by the gold standard PCR tests used by the state, indicating that a mutation occurred in the third – the critical vein protein.

According to Travanty, the missing gene is present, but is rendered untraceable by the test due to the mutation, which makes it a feature of the variant. When laboratories find the red flag, it indicates that more research is needed.

Very unknown

“There’s a lot we do not know about this variant,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said last week after the first U.S. case was discovered in his state. “But if it transmits faster, more people will get it and more people will be admitted to the hospital.”

Nevertheless, there are some positive findings related to the variant. It is apparently not more deadly, but if more people become infected, there will be more deaths. It is not thought to be able to overcome the two vaccines already being distributed in the US Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE shot, and the Moderna Inc. shot.

“There is good news here,” Topol said. ‘It will not affect the effectiveness of the vaccine. That is why there is this race. If we predict it and everyone is vaccinated, if we do it quickly, we will have this virus under control. ”

Shipping Speed

Meanwhile, the extra transmission speed associated with the new voltage in the UK was noted. The number of new cases has risen dramatically in recent weeks, even as the country has introduced stronger and stronger closures, said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

In the US, masking and social removal have often been more of a political issue than a public health issue, with at least one adviser to President Donald Trump suggesting that herd immunity occurs, which occurs when enough people become immune to a disease to the unlikely spread can be achieved by simply letting the disease run.