Gavin Newsom’s government announced on Wednesday that a mutated and more contagious type of coronavirus, which had deep concern when it originated in the United Kingdom, had arrived in California.
San Diego County officials said tests showed a 30-year-old resident experienced the tension in California’s first confirmed case of the variant, one day after the series was first discovered in the United States. The man in Southern California has not traveled recently, officials said – a sign that despite efforts to curb the mutation in Europe, it may already be spreading locally.
Government Gavin Newsom announced the news during a virtual meeting with dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
There are no signs that the mutant strain is causing worse cases of the disease, say experts from Fauci and other infectious diseases, and early indications are that it could be combated with the emerging variety of vaccinations.
But a more transmissible strain can lead to more infections and deaths as the virus reaches those who are most vulnerable. And an increase in COVID-19 patients could exacerbate the strain on an already burdened medical system, making it more likely that people would die from the virus if overwhelming hospitals could not provide the care patients needed.
The precautions people need to take to prevent the spread of the latest stress are the same as those recommended by officials for months in the fight against coronavirus – to cover a face and avoid contact with people from outside your household.
“If we continue to do these things – however contagious this virus is – we will lose it,” said John Swartzberg, clinical professor of infectious disease and vaccination at Berkeley Public Health. “Do not change anything, just do what you have to do.”
Fauci said mutations and new strains of the virus could be expected during a pandemic.
‘I’m not surprised you have a case and probably have more cases in California. “We will probably see reports from other states,” Fauci said. “I do not think Californians should feel that this is something strange.”
The coronavirus is an RNA virus, and such viruses make a existence of mutation, ‘Fauci said. Most mutations do not change the way the virus behaves, but “every now and then you get a mutation that affects the function of the virus.”
“It appears,” Fauci said, “from what we have learned in the UK and what we will learn here that this mutation actually makes the virus better at transmitting from one person to another.”
Researchers still do not know exactly why this is, Swartzberg said. One major suspect is the ‘peak’ proteins on the virus, which may have mutated to more easily bind to the cells of a potential host. The mutation can also cause infected people to shed more of the virus.
The bottom line, Swartzberg said, is “that the (infected) person will spread it more to another person.”
Fauci said that people who were already infected with coronavirus apparently also have immunity to this strain. Scientists will evaluate the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccine on the new strain, Fauci said, but it is unlikely that a single mutation will affect the effectiveness of a vaccine.
The new strain did not evade detection in diagnostic tests. At the national level, however, the US has not set up a robust operation to sequence viruses and look for genetic mutations. According to an analysis by the Washington Post, 42 other provinces have contracted more infections than the US, despite the overwhelming number of cases in the country.
The Associated Press reported.