Two variants may account for half of New York City's virus cases, analysis finds. - The... - 0 views
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“Unfortunately we have found that the new variants of Covid-19 are continuing to spread. And when you combine the variant of concern, B.1.1.7., the one first reported in the U.K., and the new variant of interest, B.1.5.2.6., that was first reported here in New York, together these new variants account for 51 percent of all cases that we have in the city right now. So for the variant of interest, B.1.5.2.6., that was reported here first in New York, our preliminary analysis indicates that it is probably more infectious than older strains of the virus. You know, what I referred last week to ‘Covid Classic.’ It may be similar in infectiousness to the B.1.1.7., the U.K. strain, but we’re not certain about this yet.
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Genetic analysis suggests that roughly half of coronavirus cases in New York City now are caused by two new forms of the pathogen, city officials reported on Wednesday.
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Another more contagious variant, B.1.1.7, first discovered in Britain, also is spreading steadily in the city, accounting for 12 percent of cases analyzed in the last week of February, up from 8 percent the prior week. B.1.1.7 may be more lethal than earlier versions of the virus.
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The variant was detected in about one-quarter of samples analyzed by the two academic groups in mid-February, one led by a group at Caltech, the other by researchers at Columbia University.
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Dr. Anthony West, a computational biologist at Caltech, said in an interview on Wednesday that his ongoing research also showed that the B.1.526 variant was “increasing at a considerable pace in New York City” but that it remained “fairly localized” in the area.
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“What we’ve seen in Europe when we hit that 50 percent mark, you’ll see cases surge,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. He urged the public not to let up on health measures and to get vaccinated as quickly as possible.
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“It’s anybody’s guess, given the vaccine, the competition among the variants and everything we are trying to do to keep the virus low,” he said.