Genetic analysis suggests that about half of coronavirus cases in New York City are currently caused by two new forms of coronavirus, city officials reported Wednesday.
One of the so-called variants, first detected in the city, now accounts for nearly 40% of all cases analyzed in local laboratories. The increase in the variant, B.1.526, was so striking that officials said they believed it was more infectious than the original form of the coronavirus.
Another more contagious variant, B.1.1.7, first discovered in Britain, is also spreading steadily in the city, accounting for 12% of cases analyzed last week, up from 8% the week before. B.1.1.7 may be more deadly than previous versions of the virus.
Rather than sound the alarm, officials said they believe continued health practices – from masking to vaccination – were enough to control the virus. The vaccines remain effective against these variants, as well as against the original coronavirus.
–
So far, deaths and severe hospitalizations have continued to decline in the city, officials noted. “So far, thank God, what we are seeing is that the variants do not pose the worst kind of problems we could fear,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press briefing on Wednesday. .
Dr David Chokshi, the city’s health commissioner, said the B.1.526 variant has been detected in samples across the city, not just in one community. The variant first appeared in samples in November, particularly those in Washington Heights in Manhattan, and was first described in academic papers published in late February.
The variant was detected in about a quarter of the samples analyzed by the two university groups in mid-February, one led by a group at Caltech, the other by researchers at Columbia University.
The coronavirus epidemic ›
Latest updates
- Two variants may account for half of the virus cases in New York City, health officials said.
- A vaccine developed in India is safe to use, researchers say.
- New York public schools have seen very low transmission of the virus as cases in the city increase, a study has found.
–
–
The prevalence of the B.1.526 variant had increased citywide to 31 percent two weeks ago and to 39 percent last week, Dr Chokshi said.
Dr Anthony West, a computer 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 rate in New York” but remained “fairly localized” in The area.
–
He and his colleagues found two subtypes of the B.1.526 variant: one with the Mutation E484K seen in South Africa and Brazil, which is believed to help the virus partially avoid vaccines; and another with a mutation called S477N, which can affect the way the virus binds to human cells.
City officials said that despite the E484K mutation, they still had no evidence that the B.1.526 variant was partially immune to vaccine protection. “Our preliminary analysis does not show that this new strain causes more serious disease or reduces the effectiveness of vaccines,” said Dr Jay Varma, adviser to Mr de Blasio.
Earlier this year, experts said the city’s DNA analysis capacity was insufficient to understand the dynamics of the outbreak in New York City. The overall ability of the United States to track variants is much less robust than in Britain, and federal health officials have expressed significant concerns that variants could spread here undetected. New York has increased the number of samples analyzed in recent weeks.
Nationally, epidemiologists have sounded the alarm bells about B.1.1.7, which is on track to be the dominant form of the virus in that country by the end of March. This variant is believed to have contributed to sharp increases in cases and full hospitals in Britain and elsewhere.
“What we’ve seen in Europe when we hit that 50% mark, you’ll see cases increase,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told the “Meet the Press” broadcast on Sundays. He urged the public not to abandon health measures and to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
Dr Denis Nash, an epidemiologist at the City University of New York, said on Wednesday that while he was worried about the new variants, there were more questions than answers about their impact on the spread of the virus in New York.
“Everyone’s guessing, given the vaccine, the competition between the variants and everything we’re trying to do to keep the virus low,” he said.
“The same things we always do have the ability to reduce the impact of the virus,” he added, calling for continued vigilance and precautions. “If there is an exposure that goes beyond these defenses, there is a potential that it may settle more easily or last longer. But if we keep doing everything we’ve done to prevent the spread, we should be able to deal with the variants as well. “
Apoorva Mandavilli contributed reporting.
–
–
