New coronavirus strain may be behind California's surge - Los Angeles Times

California scientists have discovered a homegrown coronavirus strain that appears to be propagating faster than any other variant on the loose in the Golden State.

Two independent research groups said they stumbled upon the new strain while looking for signs that a highly transmissible variant from the United Kingdom had established itself here.

Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles found that although the strain had been barely detectable in early October, it accounted for 24% of roughly 4,500 viral samples gathered throughout California in the last weeks of 2020.

In a separate analysis of 332 virus samples culled mostly from Northern California during late November and December, 25% were of the same type.

Charles Chiu, a laboratory medicine specialist at UC San Francisco who examined the samples from the northern part of the state with collaborators from the California Department of Public Health.

coronavirus variant spreads more easily has scientists really worried.

coronavirus variant spreads more easily has scientists really worried.

British scientists have bolstered their case that the new coronavirus variant spreads more easily than its predecessors.

The team at Cedars-Sinai collected 192 viral samples from patients at the medical center between Nov?

All thoughts quickly turned to the state’s calamitous COVID-19 surge — a run-up in illness and death that stressed hospitals to their limit, killed more than 18,000 Californians and doubled the state’s total death toll in the space of less than three months.

Flummoxed health officials working to contain the outbreak had hypothesized that they were up against a new coronavirus strain with enhanced transmission capabilities.

How the ‘California miracle’ dissolved into a winter coronavirus nightmare.

How the ‘California miracle’ dissolved into a winter coronavirus nightmare.

Experts say California’s brutal winter COVID-19 surge is largely driven by complacency on masking and distancing.

In addition, the strain’s sudden prominence among viral samples in Northern California could be due in part to its role in an unusually large outbreak at Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center that infected at least 77 staffers and 15 patients, and resulted in one employee death

In Southern California, where the timelines of the surge and B.1.426’s emergence seem better aligned, researchers are more inclined to blame the virus

Adding to his concern are the findings of other researchers at Howard University who engineered and tested a version of the coronavirus with the L452R mutation, which rose to prominence in a strain that surfaced in Denmark in March

In Chiu’s lab, as well as at Cedars-Sinai, scientists will put the new strain through its paces to look for signs that B.1.426’s mutations have enhanced its performance

That suggests that the new strain may be able to hide its presence from antibodies created after exposure to other versions of the virus — a phenomenon known as “immune escape.” If that’s the case, it might undermine the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and antibody-based treatments