On November 19, 2020, health workers will perform free Covid-19 tests on people in their cars in the parking lot of the Columbus West Family Health and Wellness Center in Columbus, Ohio.
Stephen Zenner | AFP | Getty Images
Researchers in Ohio said Wednesday that they have discovered two new variants of the coronavirus that are likely to have originated in the U.S., one of which quickly became the dominant strain in Columbus, Ohio, over a three-week period in late December and Became January.
Like the strain first detected in the UK, the US mutations appear to make Covid-19 more contagious, but it does not appear to reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine, researchers said.
Researchers from Ohio State University have not yet published their full findings, but said a non-peer-reviewed study is forthcoming. Jason McDonald, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a statement to CNBC that the agency was looking into the new research.
One of the new strains, found in just one patient in Ohio, contains a mutation identical to the current dominant variant in the UK, researchers said, pointing out that it “probably originated in a virus strain already present in the United States. ” However, the ‘Columbus strain’, which according to the researchers became predominant in a press release in the city, contains ‘three other gene mutations not previously seen in SARS-CoV2.’
“This new Columbus strain has the same genetic backbone as previous cases we studied, but these three mutations represent an important evolution,” said Dr. Dan Jones, vice president of the division for molecular pathology in the state of Ohio, said in a statement. “We know that this shift does not come from the British or South African branches of the virus.”
The mutation found in the dominant new strain in Columbus – COH.20G / 501Y – could occur independently in several parts of the world in recent months, the researchers said.
Peter Mohler, a scientific officer at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center and co-author of the upcoming study, said there is no data to suggest that the new strain will affect vaccine efficacy.
“It is important that we do not overreact to this new variant before obtaining additional data,” he said in a statement. “We need to understand the impact of mutations on the transmission of the virus, the prevalence of stress in the population and whether it has a more significant impact on human health.
The researchers in Ohio are holding a press conference on their discovery at 11:00 ET.
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