California’s homegrown coronavirus variant has now spread to 19 states and SIX countries

A new local strain of the novel coronavirus first identified in California has spread to 19 U.S. states and six countries, a new study finds.

The strain, called CAL.20C, was first discovered by researchers at Cedars Sinai Los Angeles in Los Angeles County in July 2020.

It went relatively undetected before exploding in the fall and was blamed for the striking rise in cases in California between November 2020 and January 2021. 

CAL.20C is different from the variant first identified in the UK, known as B 1.1.7., that has been linked to 156 infections in The Golden State. 

But the team found that CAL.20C is responsible for nearly half of all current COVID-19 cases in Southern California. 

Scientists still have no idea whether the strain is more infectious, deadly or whether it makes vaccines less effective.

The coronavirus strain called CAL.20C (pink bar) was identified by researchers at Cedars Sinai Los Angeles. It was first observed in July 2020 before reemerging in October 2020 and spiking over the winter holidays

CAL20.C is now believed to be responsible for nearly half of all current COVID-19 cases in Southern California

CAL20.C is now believed to be responsible for nearly half of all current COVID-19 cases in Southern California

The strain is different from the variant B 1.1.7., which was first identified in the UK, and has led to 156 cases in California

The strain is different from the variant B 1.1.7., which was first identified in the UK, and has led to 156 cases in California

‘CAL.20C is moving, and we think it is Californians who are moving it,’ said co-senior author Dr Jasmine Plummer, a scientist at the Cedars-Sinai Center for Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics, in a news release.

For the study, published in JAMA, the team looked at 2,311 samples from symptomatic COVID-19 inpatients and ambulatory care patients who tested positive between November 22 and December 28 at Cedars Sinai.

They ran genome sequencing and compared the samples to 400,000 randomly selected samples taken from global genomic database GISAID between December 2019, and January 2021.

Of the Cedars Sinai samples, just 185 were analyzed with 36 percent found to be linked to the CAL.20C variant.  

A separate analysis of more than 10,000 samples determined that the strain was first seen in July in Los Angeles County. 

It was then not detected in Southern California again until October before exploding over the holidays. 

By January, CAL.20C (yellow) was in 44% of all samples collected and believed to be responsible for the surge in cases over Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's

By January, CAL.20C (yellow) was in 44% of all samples collected and believed to be responsible for the surge in cases over Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s

By January, it was in 44 percent of all samples collected and believed to be responsible for the surge in cases over Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.

Researchers determined the strain now accounts for nearly half of current COVID-19 cases in Southern California, which is nearly double the percentage seen in the region one month ago.

Southern California was defined to include the following counties: Imperial, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura. 

What’s more, they found that CAL20C has expanded to U.S. states – Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming – as well as Washington, DC.

The global samples taken from GISAID detected the strain in six countries: Australia, Denmark, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

The team believes this means travelers from Southern California are carrying CAL.20C to other states as well as other parts of the world.

It is currently unclear whether CAL.20C is deadlier than other strains, or more immune to vaccines, but an investigation to find the answers is underway.

‘New variants do not always affect the behavior of a virus in the body,’ said co-senior author Dr Eric Vail, an assistant professor of pathology and director of molecular pathology at Cedars-Sinai.  

‘But we are interested in the CAL.20C strain because three of its five variants involve the so-called spike protein, which enables the SARS-CoV-2 virus to invade and infect normal cells.’ 

CAL.20C includes five recurring variants, including one that was reported by the California Department of Public Health in January.

The variant, known as L452R, was first seen in Denmark but does not appear to be a more infectious one in the European country that was linked to minks and led to 17 million of the animals being culled in November.

It has been linked to multiple outbreaks in Santa Clara County, including one in a Kaiser Permanante emergency room that sickened more than 90 and led to one death.

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