To date, California has confirmed 30 cases of CCA virus (COVID-19) variants since Dec. 30, all in Southern California, including 28 cases in San Diego County and 2 cases in San Bernardino County.
San Diego County has 28 confirmed cases and 4 suspected cases
On January 5, the San Diego County health Department reported 24 confirmed cases of B.1.1.7 variant CCLV and 4 suspected cases (positive for nucleic acid but not confirmed by whole genome sequencing), plus 4 previously confirmed new cases, involving a total of 32 people in the area.
Of the 32 individuals, half are male and half are female, and the patients span a wide age range, with the 4 youngest infected individuals being less than 10 years old and the oldest infected individual being over 70 years old. To date, the average age of new infections is 36 years.
The 24 newly diagnosed patients have no travel history and come from 19 households (investigations are ongoing) in communities including the City of San Diego, Chula Vista, La Mesa and Lakeside.
The four previously diagnosed cases in San Diego County were in La Mesa, Mission Beach, Otay Mesa, and Carmel Mountain, and the first was diagnosed on Dec. 30 in a 30-year-old man with no travel history, the first case of the variant CCHS in California.
On January 1, three other new cases were reported in San Diego County, including two men in their 40s and one man in his 50s. Follow-up showed no contact between the three and no association with other infected persons; two had no history of foreign travel and the status of the other was unknown.
Of the total 28 confirmed cases, four were diagnosed before Jan. 1 and 24 were confirmed on Jan. 4. Samples for the newly confirmed cases were sent between Dec. 27 and 31 of last year.
There have been no deaths from the variant virus in San Diego County, and only one woman has been hospitalized and has returned home to recover.
2 confirmed in San Bernardino County
Also on January 1, the California Department of Health notified San Bernardino County that two residents of the county had been diagnosed with the new variant of B.1.1.7.
Both are from the same family in the Big Bear area, and one of the infected individuals had contact with a local resident returning from the United Kingdom on Dec. 11 and began showing symptoms of infection on Dec. 14. It is unclear whether the person traveling to the United Kingdom also contracted the new virus and whether it infected others.
Health officials said that based on the information available, the new variant of the virus is more contagious and spreading more quickly.
The B.1.1.7 virus was originally discovered in the United Kingdom. The first case of the virus in the United States appeared in Colorado, where officials said the infected person was a National Guardsman who was assisting a local hospital in fighting the epidemic.
Three variants of the virus have been found worldwide
Three variants of COVID-19 have been discovered worldwide, according to a presentation by Dong Yuhong, chief scientist at a Swiss biotechnology company and an expert in virology and infectious diseases, compiled by the Epoch Times. In addition to the B.1.1.7 virus, which was first discovered in the United Kingdom, a new variant of the virus has been discovered in South Africa and Nigeria, respectively.
The mutations in the UK variant are mostly in the stinger protein, which is known as the “key” to virus entry into the body, and mutations in the key N501Y site allow the virus to enter the body more easily and bind more strongly, resulting in faster spread of the new virus and greater infectivity.
The South African variant virus has one more major mutation site than the UK one, E484K. The E484K site and the N501Y site are two of the six key points of contact between the virus and the cell, so the South African variant virus has attracted greater attention.
In contrast, the Nigerian variant virus was found to have the P681H mutation, although it did not have the mutation at the N501Y site. the mutation at the P681H site may lead to easier fusion of the virus with the cell membrane. And the first step of virus invasion into human body is binding, and the second step is cell membrane fusion. Therefore, it can be seen that all three viruses are mutating towards higher transmissibility.
Variant viruses may not be “transmissible”
Most of the new variant viruses identified in the United States so far (including the first case in the nation) have no travel history. One theory suggests that the new variant has spread within the United States. Yuhong Dong agrees, but she also raises the possibility that the new virus may not have “spread”.
She said, “The nature of the virus is that it keeps mutating in order to escape the human fight against it.” Viruses are constantly changing in order to adapt to the human immune environment and escape from drugs and vaccines. And viruses that are highly transmissible and have a high impact on human health are able to survive the mutations.
She pointed out that people all over the world are currently fighting the virus with the same treatments, such as Ridciclovir and rehabilitator serum, and under the same selective pressure, the virus is prone to the same mutations. “So, the virus doesn’t have to spread to have very similar variants that can occur in different places around the world.”
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