Seven coronavirus mutations have been detected in the U.S., which may be more dangerous than the common strain of COVID-19, as was reported by the Medrxiv portal.
All the variants reported in a preliminary study have gained a mutation at the same location in their genome and appear to belong to the same lineage as the virus first sequenced on December 1, which subsequently became more common.
“There’s clearly something going on with this mutation,” Jeremy Kamil from the Louisiana State University and co-author of the study told the New York Times. It isn’t clear if the mutation makes the variants more transmissible, like the B.1.1.7 coronavirus variant first sequenced in the UK, but its location in a gene that influences how the virus enters human cells is concerning.
“I think there’s a clear signature of an evolutionary benefit,” Kamil said. The preliminary study was released on a pre-print server and has not been peer-reviewed.
So far, there is no exact information on how contagious the new strains are and where they are spreading.
According to the study, over 28 million cases have been recorded in the U.S. during the pandemic. 497,000 are lethal.