How the Coronavirus Variants Are Spreading in New York City - The New York Times

The number of new coronavirus cases in New York City has remained alarmingly, and stubbornly, high for weeks, even as tens of thousands of people are vaccinated daily.

A likely reason is that more contagious variants have displaced the original forms of the virus, public health officials have said, accounting for more than 75 percent of new cases, according to a recent analysis.

Each week, the Health Department releases the results of a sampling of up to 1,500 sequenced cases, providing a citywide snapshot of which variants are on the rise.

During February and March, two Covid-19 variants — B.1.526 (first detected in New York City) and B.1.1.7 (first detected in the U.K.) — grew to become the dominant forms of the virus in N.Y.C.

A variant first discovered in New York, B.1.526, has spread more widely in the city than all of the others so far.

There has also been a significant increase in cases linked to the B.1.1.7 variant, which was first detected in Britain last year and now makes up nearly 30 percent of new cases sequenced in New York City.

But not in New York City, where B.1.526 remains the most prevalent variant, comprising about 45 percent of cases sequenced from the fourth week of March.

Source: New York City Department of Health.

As to which is more contagious — B.1.1.7 or B.1.526 — health officials are not yet sure.

In Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn, the B.1.526 variant made up more than 50 percent of all the cases sequenced between March 16 and April 1.

One of the few places where B.1.1.7 appears responsible for the majority of cases was along the southern tip of Staten Island, which has struggled with high case loads for months and currently has some of the highest positivity rates in the city.

Across Staten Island, B.1.1.7 made up 40 percent of new cases sequenced between March 16 and April 1.

In the Bronx, B.1.1.7 represented only 23 percent of the cases sequenced.

In a given week, about one to two thousand positive coronavirus cases in New York City are sequenced — that is, the genetic material of the virus is examined for mutations.

That represents roughly between four and eight percent of New York City’s new cases.

The majority of those cases are sequenced at a laboratory in Long Island City operated by Opentrons, a robotics company.

It also showed the proportion of B.1.1.7 and B.1.526 cases growing rapidly.

The report said that B.1.526 cases have been detected in all five boroughs, but were slightly more common in the Bronx and parts of Queens

Chokshi said that the geographic breakdown of variants illustrated where the variants had been detected and how widespread they were across the city, questions health officials had been asking for weeks

In ZIP codes where more than 20 percent of the population lives in poverty, there were about three times as many B.1.526 cases sequenced as B.1.1.7 cases between March 1 and April 1

The abundance of variants being detected in the city has created a complicated challenge for health officials

The variant first detected in New York, B.1.526, appears to come with two forms of mutation

More than half of the B.1.526 circulating in New York City now carries a mutation similar to ones carried by the variants discovered in South Africa and Brazil, according to the New York City Health Department

However, there is no real-world evidence yet that B.1.526 results in more severe infection, or is more likely to evade antibodies from prior infections or vaccines, though it is being studied, city officials said

The P.1 variant, which has been linked to a surge of cases in Brazil, has been detected about two dozen times in New York City between March 16 and April 1, mainly in Queens