According to a new report, a more contagious strain of coronavirus that has been confirmed in three U.S. states may have been in the country since October.
Researchers say a mutation in the virus identified in the U.S. appears to be similar to the B117 variant of the error – the so-called “British variant” – that may even have originated in America, The Guardian reported in a report.
The easiest transmission strain has been identified in patients in California, Colorado and Florida as of Friday, according to the newspaper.
“It wouldn’t be at all surprising that at least some of the cases were B117,” said researcher Eric Topol, head of the Scripps Research Translation Institute in La Jolla, California.
“He’s probably been here a while at low levels, but you don’t see him until you look for him,” Topol said.
British officials announced the existence of a variant of the global pandemic on December 14, prompting at least 17 countries to announce travel bans from the UK.
On Thursday, Florida became the third state in the United States to identify a similar variant: joining California and Colorado, which reported cases earlier this week.
The discovery prompted Helix scientists to test DNA in California to review 2 million COVID-19 tests, which determined that there was a genetic pattern similar to the mutated virus in some samples since October. say the Guardian.
Helix is now working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine the extent of the variant’s presence in the country.
“If we look at the (variant B117), we may be able to see if it was introduced to the United States once or several times, or if it has mutated even further,” said Nicole Washington, Helix’s associate director of research.
“If all the samples have it, it’s probably been here for a while,” he said. “But if they only have one or two samples, it may have been introduced recently and we’re at the beginning of seeing it spread.”
The scientist said that there is also the possibility, although unlikely, that the variant originated in the United States and not in Britain.