Worries over new U.S. Covid variants
Two homegrown variants of the coronavirus are rapidly spreading in California and the New York City metro area, raising fears among scientists that the strains could cause a nationwide spike in infections and deaths. On the West Coast, new research suggests that the California variant is more contagious and more likely to cause sickness and death than the previously dominant form of Covid-19, reports the Los Angeles Times. It also appears more resistant to antibodies generated by a Covid-19 vaccine or prior infection. While the strain wasn’t the main driver of California’s winter surge in infections and fatalities, it rose from complete obscurity to accounting for 50 percent of examined coronavirus samples in just five months. Meanwhile, studies found that the New York variant— which first appeared in November—now accounts for 1 in 4 viral samples collected in the city. It, too, appears to be more dangerous than earlier strains, with infected patients more likely to be hospitalized, and more resistant to vaccines. The emergence of these new variants comes as health officials were already bracing for the impact of the highly infectious U.K. strain, which is expected to become the dominant U.S. strain this month. “The devil is already here,” says infectious-disease researcher Charles Chiu, from the University of California, San Francisco. “I wish it were different. But the science is the science.”