The California Institute of Technology and Columbia University this week shared the results of their studies on a new mutant of Covid-19, which is believed to have appeared in and around New York City. These publications have not yet gone through the fact-checking stage, but the first data suggest greater contamination and increased resistance of the variant to vaccines against the coronavirus. “We are seeing that the detection rate of this new variant has been increasing for a few weeks. We are concerned that it is starting to overtake other strains, just like the British and South African variants,” the researchers explain. “We do not ‘we do not have enough data to confirm this last point at the moment, however.
The mutation concerns the Spike protein which allows the virus to attach itself to cells and it is also to it that the antibodies attach in case of contamination. It thus meets similarities with the South African and Brazilian variants. It is precisely the mutation of this protein that would make the coronavirus more resistant to certain vaccines.
This new variant would represent approximately 27% of the viral sequences identified in New York. The researchers alerted authorities in New York State and the city, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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