–HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) – The Houston area now faces at least five different variants of COVID-19, with the addition of three from New York, Brazil and California. Study results released Thursday by Houston Methodist’s infectious disease team have shown that the three additional variants have been detected among the 20,453 coronavirus genomes in the area examined since the start of the pandemic.
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The Houston Methodist study is the first to identify the three new variants in the greater Houston area.
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Variants of United Kingdom and South Africa have already been confirmed by city and county health officials, who have described them as more contagious.
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The findings come from the nation’s leading hospital system genome sequencing study. The Methodist team processes up to 1,700 samples per week. All four variants were detected in the most recent batches of genomes, the hospital told ABC13.
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