Health officials have confirmed the presence of a more contagious variant of the new coronavirus in San Bernardino County, authorities announced Friday, January 1st.
The B117 strain of COVID-19 was detected on Dec. 20 in samples collected from two residents of a home in Big Bear area, San Bernardino County officials said in a news release. A person from the infected household had contact with a traveler who returned from the UK on 11 December and then had symptoms three days later.
The coronavirus variant recently spotted in San Bernardino County was first reported in the UK and may have spread there since September, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It has become commonplace in the UK and has been attributed to 60% of all COVID-19 infections in London since November.
The B117 strain “seems to spread easier and faster,” said Dr. Michael Bernarder County Health Officer Michael Sequeria said. It contains a protein that makes it easier for the mutated pathogen to bind and attach to an enzyme found in human cells.
Researchers are learning more about the more contagious version of COVID-19. Health officials have not gathered any evidence to suggest that it causes serious illness in patients or is less resistant to vaccines.
“From the experience we have with this mutation and other mutations, it is unlikely that it will have a major impact on vaccine-induced immunity, or an existing immunity against previous strains,” said Greg Armstrong, director of the CDC’s Advanced Molecular Detection Program, said a conference call Wednesday, Dec. 30.
To date, more than 20 million people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19. More than 346,000 Americans have died from the disease.
In the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino, 645,548 new cases were reported in December alone. Meanwhile, the availability of hospital beds in California has dropped to critically low levels.
Updates on the condition of the two patients in San Bernardino County who were diagnosed with the virus were not immediately available.