A coronavirus variant that bears some of the same mutations as the infectious British variant in the U.S. since October and is already widespread, a review of more than 2m trials suggests .
Genome sequencing to determine if the variant observed in Americans is the same as the so-called B117 variant that is currently circulating in the UK has begun.
Results are expected within days but the revelations have raised new questions about the origins of the modified virus, including a small possibility that it originated in the US, not the UK, or the UK. anywhere else. The variant was also found in at least 17 countries, including South Korea, Spain, Australia and Canada.
“It would be no surprise if at least some of the B117 cases,” said Eric Topol, head of the Scripps Research Translation Institute in La Jolla, California, who was not involved in the research, but confirmed the his California team. case of the variable B117 Wednesday.
“He may have been here for a while at low levels – but you won’t see him until you look for him.”
The UK health secretary has announced a new SARS CoV-2 variant that can be overdosed on December 14, after Covid’s trials reported that a growing number of their advanced samples missed a signal from one of all three genes their PCR tests use to confirm the presence of the virus.
Other series have shown that such a “S drop drop” was caused by mutations in the gene encoding the spike protein that the virus uses to enter human cells. The variant is thought to have been circulating in the UK since September.
News of the new variant has led to a number of countries restricting travel from the UK – or in the case of the US, asking passengers to admit proof of a negative Covid-19 test. However, it was discovered this week in Colorado and California, and it is suspected that it may already be widespread.
To investigate, scientists at the California-based DNA testing company Helix examined the frequency of S gene drop among 2 million of the Covid tests the company has worked out in the past few months. They saw an increase in S gene reduction among positive samples from early October, when 0.25% of positive tests showed this pattern.
This has grown since then, hitting an average of 0.5% last week – although it is in Massachusetts, which has the largest number of such samples, it is currently at 1.85% , although no case of the B117 variant has been reported in that state yet.
Further analysis revealed mutations in some of the same regions of the S gene that are also present in the B117 variant – although full classification of the viral genome is needed to determine whether this is indeed the only variant, or something else.
The coronavirus pandemic is out of control in the US, with the death toll in 24 hours more than 3,740 earlier in the week marking the worst day of the revolution in the country still.
Public health experts and Joe Biden, president of the Democrats, have warned that the situation will get worse before it gets better, even as vaccines become available.
Helix is currently working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as it awaits test results on the variant found in the U.S..
“If we see the [B117 variant], we may be able to check whether it has been introduced to the US once or several times, or whether it has moved again, ”said Nicole Washington, deputy director of research at Helix, which her research was published as a preview. and has not yet undergone peer review.
“If it has all the samples, it may have been here for a while, but if there are only one or two samples it may have been recently introduced. and we’re just beginning to see it spread. “
It is also possible that the variant originated in the US and then spread to the UK – although it is unlikely, as the B117 variant appears to be more common in England, Topol said. “However, I don’t think this should be called the UK variable because we don’t know where it came from.”
If the B117 is widely based in the US, it is very likely that a travel ban will not work, Topol said: “The variant is likely to gain the upper hand. [within the US] in the coming months, so what we need to do is be better off with a combination of very tight mitigation measures, including screening and testing, and vaccination as there will be no tomorrow. , ”He said. “The vaccines should work well.”
Even if the variant named Helix B117 is not, the nature of some of its mutations is worrying, as they could transmit the virus’ ability to infect human cells, said Ravi Gupta, a professor at clinical microbiology at Cambridge University. , RA, who helped change the B117 version.
At the same time the U.S. has fallen far short of the targets set by the U.S. government for the number of people it hoped to get vaccinated by the end of 2020.
U.S. leading infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci has called on the federal government to use more resources to vaccinate Americans.
As state, underfunded public health departments worked to deliver the vaccines, some seniors stayed out overnight to receive their first dose in Florida.
“We would like to see a smooth run and the introduction of 20m doses in humans by the end of 2020, that was the projection. It certainly didn’t happen, and that’s a disappointment, “Fauci told NBC on Thursday.
More than 14m vaccine doses were released in the U.S. by the end of December, but only 2.1 million people were vaccinated, the leaders of the federal vaccine program, Operation Warp Speed, said at a news conference Wednesday.