This variant has been found in the U.S. 63 cases in California 32 cases in New York 1 case in Forsyth predicts the situation will worsen
According to a Jan. 8 update on the CDC website, 63 cases of this variant have been found in the United States. (Taken from the CDC website)
Will the new CCP virus (COVID-19) variant destroy the vaccine? Laboratories scramble to find answers as researchers try to determine why the variants found in the United Kingdom and South Africa spread so quickly and whether they could harm vaccines.
The new study found that the new virus variants contain 17 mutations and appear to be more difficult to control than the original SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen that causes COVID-19
Dr. Nicholas Davies, a leading epidemiologist who led the study, said his team of scientists’ findings should serve as a warning to other countries, NPR reported. The new variant contains 17 mutations and appears to be more difficult to control than the original SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen that causes COVID-19. “Given all the biological and epidemiological evidence over the last few weeks, I think the picture is one that increasingly fits with some pretty serious questions.” Davis said. After noting that similar variants were wreaking havoc across South Africa, Davis set out to use mathematical models to predict how the disease would spread in order to guide decision makers. He found that the U.K. version contained a mutation called N501Y that had a 50 percent higher transmission capacity than the original virus. Other studies have suggested that one reason the new variant is so powerful is that it infects human cells more readily than the original variant and that it may replicate itself more rapidly in a person’s body. Again, according to Davis’ analysis and report updated on Dec. 31, his scientific team estimated that the viral variant called VOC202012/01 had a 56 percent higher transmission rate than the existing variant of SARS-CoV-2. They were unable to find clear evidence that VOC202012/01 caused higher or lower disease severity than the existing variant.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website explains that this variant is called “SARS-CoV-2 VOC202012/01” (i.e., the first variant of interest from December 2020) or “B.1.1.7 “. According to a January 8 update on the CDC website, 63 cases of this variant have been identified in the United States, with them found in California (32 cases), Florida (22 cases), Colorado (3 cases), Texas (1 case), New York (1 case), Pennsylvania (1 case), Connecticut (1 case) and Georgia (1 case). The cases identified above are based on a sample of SARS-CoV-2 positive samples and do not represent the total number of B.1.1.7 descent cases that may have spread in the United States, and may not match the number of cases reported in each state.
Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard Tzeng-Hsieh Chen School of Public health, said that for whatever underlying reason, policymakers should take this new variant very seriously. If it does spread 50 percent, it will be very difficult to stop it from spreading. Hanage said, “Given the assumptions in their model, it’s very difficult to avoid a situation like what happened last spring in terms of the capacity and surge in hospital beds.” According to the journal Nature, Jesse Bloom, a viral evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, says a pressing question is whether such changes will alter the effectiveness of vaccines in the real world. In preliminary work released Jan. 4 without peer-reviewed accreditation, his team also reported that E484K and several other mutations can, to varying degrees, escape recognition by human recovery serum antibodies.
The Associated Press reports that the new study shows that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine protects against two of the more infectious coronavirus mutations in outbreaks in the United Kingdom and South Africa. Dr. Frederic Bushman of the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the Pfizer study, cautioned that the study tested only one vaccine against a worrisome mutation and did not study the other two main vaccines, Moderna and AstraZeneca, but the latter two are being tested similarly, and he hopes for similar findings. In addition, the study results have not yet been reviewed by outside experts, a critical step in medical research. The New Times reports that infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony S. Fauci predicted Thursday that the daily death toll from coronavirus continues to rise over several weeks. He believes the situation will worsen as January approaches.
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