Another Covid strain that shares some characteristics to the South Africa variant is arising in New York City, analysts said Wednesday.
As of mid-February, the new variation, called B.1.526, was available in around 12% of Covid samples gathered in the Big Apple and surrounding zones, as per analysts at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
In their investigation of publicly available databases, the Columbia analysts didn’t locate a high prevalence of the South Africa or Brazil COVID-19 variations in the region.
“Instead we found high numbers of this home-grown lineage,” Dr. Anne-Catrin Uhlemann, assistant professor in the division of infectious diseases at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, said in a statement.
The Columbia study found the new strain shares a few similitudes toward the South Africa strain, which researchers believe can spread more effectively than other virus variations.
B.1.526 was additionally depicted in exploration published for this present week by the California Institute of Technology.
Neither one of the studies has been reviewed by outside specialists.