The new coronavirus mutation originally discovered in the United Kingdom has been discovered in Southern California, too, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday.
What happened:
Newsom revealed the new mutation had arrived in California while speaking with Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in a virtual interview, KTLA reports.
- Officials announced details about the infected patient soon after.
- The infected patient is a 30-year-old San Diego man who has no history of travel, a sign that the variant has spread through the community.
L.A. County Department of Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer told KTLA there is no evidence the virus has arrived in Los Angeles County yet. However, that doesn’t mean the variant isn’t there yet.
- “This doesn’t mean that the variant is not circulating in L.A. County,” Ferrer said. “We have thousands and thousands of people getting tested every day, and we’re just able to sample a small number of those tests results and do the gene sequencing.”
Colorado has seen cases
Colorado health officials said they’ve found at least two cases of the new coronavirus variant within the last week. The two men infected with the mutation don’t have a history of travel to the United Kingdom, either, as I wrote for the Deseret News.
- Experts have said the new variant could be more transmissible than the first mutation of the novel coronavirus. But there’s still questions about how well the COVID-19 vaccine will stop the mutation.
- Dr. Scott Gottlieb recently told CNBC the new mutation “is already in the United States” and is likely spreading.