NY virus variant spurs concern

Another mutated version of the coronavirus has popped up in New York City, and experts reacted to the the news with a mixture of caution and concern.

The new variant first appeared in the New York area in late November, and has since cropped up in neighboring states, according to researchers at the California Institute of Technology, one of two teams to share their work this week. But how problematic the variant may be isn’t known yet. Viruses are constantly mutating — or making typos in their genetic code — as they spread and make copies of themselves.

“Most are not of particular concern,” said Francois Balloux, director of the University College London’s Genetics Institute.

Two research groups — at Caltech and Columbia University in New York — released papers this week describing their findings about the new variant.

The Caltech researchers found that the new variant showed up in about a quarter of the 1,200 virus sequences they looked at this month. The variant has also shown up in New Jersey and Connecticut and has made “isolated appearances across the country,” said Caltech’s Anthony West, a co-author of the paper.

On Thursday, Columbia University researchers released their research that scrutinized about 1,100 virus samples from patients treated at the university’s medical center, dating back to November. During the second week of February, the new variant was identified in 12% of the samples, they reported. They also found patients infected with the mutated virus were more likely to be older and have been hospitalized.