Scientists have warned that a homemade coronavirus strain that originated in California is more contagious and shows a higher resistance to antibodies to COVID-19 vaccines.
Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, say the new variant has dangerous implications and should be considered a matter of concern, as in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil, the Los Angeles Times reported .
“The devil is already here,” Dr. Charles Chiu, who led the study, told the outlet. “I wish it was different. But science is science. ”
In the team’s unpublished findings, this indicates that the variant is approximately 19 to 24 percent more transferable, the sales area reports.
Over a period of just five months, the new strain used more than 50 percent of all coronavirus samples for genetic sequencing in the state, Chiu said.
It has also been found that the strain is more resistant to neutralizing antibodies – which raises serious questions about how much vaccines can protect against it.
Compared to previous strains, the effectiveness of neutralizing antibodies against the variant has been reduced to half the usual levels, according to the study according to the LA Times.
Chiu said the variant is likely to make up 90 percent of state affairs by the end of the month.
Similar to the strains of the United Kingdom and South Africa, the variant contains a mutation in its ear protein – the part of the virus that makes it contagious, the newspaper reports.
Scientists recreated the mutation in a laboratory and found that it could infect human lung tissue about 40 percent more easily, the outlet reports.