A mutated and more contagious strain of coronavirus that caused deep concern when it emerged in the UK has arrived in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday.
San Diego County officials said evidence showed a 30-year-old resident contracted the strain in the first confirmed California case of the variant, a day after the discovery of the sequence on American soil for the first time. time in Colorado. The Southern California man had not recently traveled, officials said, a sign that despite efforts to contain the mutation in Europe, it may already be spreading locally.
Governor 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 causes more severe cases of the disease, according to Fauci and other experts in contagious diseases, and early indications are that new vaccines can be combated.
But a more transmissible strain can cause more infections and deaths as the virus reaches the people most vulnerable to it. And a rise in patients with COVID-19 could worsen the stress of an already recorded medical system, making people more likely to die from the virus if overwhelmed hospitals cannot provide the care patients need.
The precautions that people must take to prevent the spread of the latest strain are the same as officials have recommended for months in the fight against coronavirus: wear a face cap and avoid contact with people outside the home. his.
“If we continue to do these things, no matter how transmissible this virus is, it will be lost,” said John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases and vaccinology at Berkeley Public Health. “Don’t change anything, do what you should always do.”
Fauci said mutations and new strains of the virus should be expected during a pandemic.
“I’m not surprised you have a case and there are probably more cases in California. We’ll probably see reports from other states, “Fauci said.” I don’t think Californians should feel that this is weird. “
Fauci claimed that the coronavirus is an RNA virus and these viruses “make a living with the mutation.” Most mutations do not change the action of the virus, but “from time to time a mutation is obtained that affects the function of the virus.”
“It seems,” Fauci said, “from what we learned from the UK and what we will learn here that this mutation actually makes the virus better transmitted from one person to another.”
Swartzberg said researchers are still unsure why. One of the main suspects is the “ear” proteins of 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 conclusion, Swartzberg said, is that “this (infected) person is more likely to spread it to another person.”
Fauci said people who were already infected with coronavirus appear to have immunity to this strain. Fauci said scientists will evaluate the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccine in the new strain, but a single mutation is unlikely to affect the effectiveness of a vaccine.
The new strain has not prevented detection in diagnostic tests. Nationally, however, the U.S. has not developed a robust operation to sequence viruses and check for genetic mutations. According to a Washington Post analysis, 42 other counties had sequenced more infections than the United States, despite the country’s large number of cases.
The Associated Press contributed to the reports.