New coronavirus mutants may have been present in the United States since October | World News

A coronavirus variant that carries some of the same mutations as the highly contagious British variant has been in the United States since October and may already be widespread, reanalyzing over 2 million tests. Suggests.

Genomic sequencing is underway to see if the mutants observed in Americans are the same as the so-called B117 mutants currently in circulation in the United Kingdom...

Results are expected within a few days, but the exposure raises new questions about where the modified virus originated. This includes possible occurrences in the United States or elsewhere, rather than in the United Kingdom. This variant has also been found in at least 17 countries, including South Korea, Spain, Australia and Canada.

“It’s no surprise that at least some cases are B117,” said Eric Topol, head of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California. He wasn’t involved in the study, but the team identified a Californian. Wednesday’s B117 variant case.

“It’s probably been here at a low level for some time-but you won’t see it until you look for it.”

The presence of a new highly infectious SarsCoV-2 mutant was announced by the UK Health Minister on 14 December. Later, the Covid Laboratory reported an increase in the number of positive samples and a lack of signals from one of the three genes. PCR test It is used to check for the presence of a virus.

Further sequencing revealed such a thing. “S gene dropoutWas the result of a mutation in the gene that encodes the peplomer protein that the virus uses to gain invasion into human cells. This variant is believed to be endemic in the UK since September.

News of new variants leads to multiple countries Restrict travel from the UK – Or in the case of the United States, require travelers to present evidence of a negative Covid-19 test in order to be admitted to the country. However, it has been detected in Colorado and California this week, and suspicions may already be widespread.

To investigate, scientists at California-based DNA testing company Helix have examined the prevalence of S gene dropouts in the 2 million Covid tests that the company has processed in recent months. They observed an increase in S gene dropouts among positive samples since early October, when 0.25% of positive tests showed this pattern.

Since then, it has grown to an average of 0.5% last week. However, in Massachusetts, where the number of such samples is highest, it is currently 1.85%, but no cases of the B117 variant have been published yet.

Further analysis revealed mutations in some of the same regions of the S gene that are also present in the B117 variant, but to see if this is actually the same variant or something else. Requires complete sequencing of the viral genome.

The coronavirus pandemic is out of control in the United States, with more than 3,740 deaths in the first 24 hours of the week, marking the worst day of its outbreak in the United States.

Public health experts and Democratic president-elect Joe Biden warned that even if the vaccine began to flow, it would get worse before it got better.

Helix is ​​currently working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), awaiting test results for variants found in the United States.

“If we see [B117 variant]That way, we might be able to find out if it was introduced once, multiple times, or even more mutated in the United States, “said Nicole Washington, Associate Director of Research at Helix. Stated. Preprint Not yet peer reviewed.

“If all the samples have it, it’s probably here for a while, but if it’s only in one or two samples, it could have been recently introduced and we’ll spread it. I’ve just started watching. “

Given that the B117 variant appears to be more prevalent in the United Kingdom, according to Topol, it is possible that this variant originated in the United States and then spread to the United Kingdom. “But I don’t know where it came from, so I don’t think it should be known as a British variant.”

If the B117 is actually widely established in the United States, travel bans are unlikely to work, Topol added: [within the US] In the next few months, all we have to do is overtake it by combining very rigorous mitigation measures, including surveillance and testing, with vaccination so that there will be no tomorrow. ” Told. “The vaccine should work.”

Ravi Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge, is concerned about the nature of the mutations involved, as the virus may increase the ability of the virus to infect human cells even if the mutant identified by Helix is ​​not B117. I added that it has been done. , UK, helped sequence of B117 variants.

Meanwhile, the United States is well below the goals set by the US government for the number of people who wanted to be vaccinated by the end of 2020.

Anthony Fauci, a top expert in infectious diseases in the United States, called on the federal government to deploy more resources to vaccinate Americans on Thursday.

Some older people were waiting overnight to receive their first dose in Florida as the overworked and underfunded state’s public health department scrambled to administer the vaccine.

“We wanted it to run smoothly and give people a dose of 20m … by the end of 2020 it was a prediction. Obviously it didn’t happen, and it’s a shame. “Forch told NBC Thursday.

By late December, more than 14 million vaccines had been distributed in the United States, but only 2.1 million were vaccinated. The leader said Of the Federal Vaccine Program, Operation Warp Speed, at a press conference on Wednesday.