An Indian strain of coronavirus carrying two mutations was found in a man living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Experts clarified that at least 7 more people can be carriers of this option, they are under control, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
NBC Bay Area TV suggests that this is the first case of an Indian strain with a double mutation on record in the United States. Therefore, it is not yet entirely clear whether it is more dangerous, how quickly it spreads and whether it is possible to avoid infection with the help of vaccines available today.
The case of infection, according to RIA Novosti, was officially confirmed by the Stanford Laboratory of Clinical Virology. Its leader, Benjamin Pinski, also confirmed the verification of seven more suspicious cases, the results of which will become known in a few days.
Infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco, Peter Chin-Hong, believes that the strain found in a US resident may be highly infectious. He refers to the data received from Indian experts – every fifth case of coronavirus detected in the state of Maharashtra is a “double mutant”. The expert says:
This Indian variant for the first time possesses in the same virus two mutations previously recorded in separate variants.
However, the expert is optimistic about the impact on this variant of the coronavirus of the currently used vaccines, given their effectiveness against the Californian and South African strains.
Earlier, epidemiologist Michael Osterholm announced the fourth wave of the pandemic in the United States. He explained this by the appearance of several new variants of the coronavirus, which pose a rather serious threat.
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