Data: New York, U.K. strain increasing in CT
A variant of COVID-19 first detected in New York is gaining ground in Connecticut, according to the latest data from the Yale School of Public Health and Jackson Laboratory.
As of Thursday, 272 cases of the variant have been reported to the state’s Department of Public Health, according to the latest report published by the Nathan Grubaugh Lab at Yale. Cases of B.1.526 made up nearly 38 percent of all the variants identified by the two labs over the past week, up just over 6 percent from the week before.
Officially, the strain is classified by the Centers for Disease Control and Preven
tion as a “variant of interest,” and researchers are worried it could escape antibody treatments, or the body’s immune response whether in someone who has been vaccinated or has had COVID-19 and recovered from it.
But state leaders and public health experts are raising more concern about the variant first identified in the U.K., known as B.1.1.7, which has mutations that make it spread more easily between people and is thought to be more deadly as well.
That strain accounted for more than 42 percent of the samples sequenced by Yale and Jackson Laboratory in Connecticut, up nearly 5 percent from the week before. In total, 649 cases of B.1.1.7 have now been detected in the state.
“The variants we know about now, in particular B.1.1.7, the most prevalent one... we know that the vaccines work against it and are successful,” Gov. Ned Lamont said Thursday, when asked about the potential for a fourth wave of infection in the state. “I’d like to think that we’re going to have 60 percent of our people vaccinated in the next week or so— I think we’re going to break the back of this thing,” he said.
On Wednesday, CDC Director Rachel Walensky said that variant is the “most common lineage circulating in the United States” based on the agency’s surveillance.
Unlike B.1.526, B.1.1.7 is classified as a “variant of concern” by the CDC.
Together, the two variants made up about 80 percent of all COVID-19 cases sequenced by Yale and Jackson Laboratory.
In a thread of tweets accompanying the release of the report Thursday, Gruout-compete baugh noted researchers at Yale had expected B.1.1.7 to become dominant earlier in March. That “slowdown,” he wrote, was likely due to a rapid rise in cases of the New York variant. The rise of both “is leaving little room for other variants” like the ones first identified in Brazil and South Africa, to spread, he said.
“B.1.1.7 is the one I always worry about the most,” said Andy Pekosz, a professor of microbiology at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health in Maryland. Once the variant is identified in communities, he said, it very quickly becomes the dominant strain. “It is clearly a virus that can older strains,” he said.
For younger people less concerned about getting severly ill if they get COVID-19, the variant should be a wake-up call, he suggested. “It’s infecting and hospitalizing younger populations,” Pekosz said.
The good news: vaccines are thought to be effective against the variant, according to Pekosz.
B.1.526, meanwhile, does not contain mutations that would make it more transmissible, but it has shown up with a mutation known as E484K. That mutation “eliminates the ability of antibodies to bind to the spike protein,” Pekosz explained.
That means a person’s immune response to the spiky protrusions on the outside of the novel coronavirus won’t be as effective at stopping it from infecting a person. So someone who has had the disease, been given antibodies or who has been vaccinated might still be infected.
The risk isn’t so much for people who are fully vaccinated. “Everything that we know with other viruses… you can still get good protection from the vaccine that protects against this variant as well,” said Pekosz.
The worry is the mutation could make it easier for a vaccinated person to then act as a “vector” to people who are not yet vaccinated or otherwise vulnerable.
That comes as infections have remained high around the state, and as hospitalizations for the virus have bounced around over the last few days.
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 rose again on Friday as Connecticut reported more than 1800 new cases in 24 hours. The daily positivity rate stood at 3.37 percent after 1,807 new cases were reported out of 53,584 new tests, according to the numbers released Friday. A net rise of 16 patients brought the statewide hospital census for COVID-19 to 531. Four more fatalities attributed to the illness brought the state’s official death toll to 7,944.
Lynn Sosa, the state’s deputy epidemiologist, said Friday B.1.1.7 could be “playing a role” in the increase of infections, but said people also need to continue with public health measures like masking, social distancing, sanitation and hand washing. She also said people should get vaccinated when they can.
But Sosa said she doesn’t think people need to keep an eye on reports of variant levels.
“We still have a lot of virus,” Sosa said. “...Regardless of what strain it is, we need to continue doing the things we’ve been doing for the past year.”