The U.S. state of Maryland has announced the discovery of a case of infection with the South African variant of the Chinese Communist virus (COVID-19) strain, and the patient has no travel history. Previously, 2 similar cases have been identified in South Carolina. This Variant virus has some ability to evade immunity and may diminish the effectiveness of existing vaccines and may even render them ineffective.
On Saturday (30), Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s office admitted to the public that the state had found a case of infection with a mutated strain of the CCP virus found in South Africa. The confirmed patient, an adult male, lives in the Baltimore metropolitan area and has no history of travel abroad, so it cannot be ruled out that this strain of the virus has spread in the community. The health prevention agency has now launched a comprehensive contact tracing of the confirmed case.
South Carolina announced on the 28th of this month that 2 people infected with the South African variant of the virus were found, both adults, and neither had any history of travel or contact with other confirmed patients. The two individuals tested positive earlier this month and it took some Time to sequence the virus before the infection was confirmed to be the South African variant.
The only two states where cases of the South African variant have been found are South Carolina and Maryland, but this has already caused great concern among U.S. epidemiologists, as several laboratory studies have shown that the South African variant is not only highly transmissible, but also has the ability to reduce the effectiveness of vaccines.
The official website of Nature, a leading British academic journal, recently reported that 501Y.V2, a variant of the Chinese Communist virus first discovered in South Africa late last year, has spread throughout South Africa and is spreading to other countries around the world.
And preliminary research by virologist Alex Sigal’s team at the African Institute for Health Research in Durban, South Africa, found that the mutation that occurred in the South African 501Y.V2 strain weakened the defenses of neutralizing antibodies. The majority of patients recovering from the disease now have sera that exert significantly less ability to neutralize the 501Y.V2 virus than they did to neutralize the pre-mutation strain of the CCA virus.
Another study in South Africa also found that the South African 501Y.V2 variant of the virus, was able to re-infect people who had previously been infected with the CCP virus, suggesting that the strain has the ability to evade the body’s immune response to earlier types of strains of the CCP virus.
Moderna Inc and Pfizer Inc recently said to the public that the vaccine they developed and produced still has a preventive effect against the currently identified variant strain of the virus. But the companies also said this week that they are considering new versions of the vaccine for newly discovered mutated strains, just in case.
Notably, on the 29th of this month, Massachusetts Democratic U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D) was diagnosed with the CCP virus. According to Fox News, Lynch had received the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine before he attended Biden‘s inauguration on the 20th, and his screening results were negative at that time, but he was still diagnosed with the Chinese Communist virus.
It is unclear what type of strain Lynch was infected with, but he was preceded by Massachusetts Democratic U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan, who was also diagnosed on the 28th and who received her first dose of the vaccine last week.
Fox News said it has contacted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to find out how many people in the U.S. are still infected after the second dose of the vaccine.
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