California fears homegrown strain to blame for sudden surge

The LA Dodgers stadium has been turned into a vaccination centre

Credit: Marcio Jose Sanchez /AP

California appears to be battling a homegrown coronavirus strain which could be to blame for the recent surge and mounting death toll that has gripped the Golden State. 

Scientists spotted a mutation, named B.1.426, while looking to see whether the highly transmissible United Kingdom variant had taken hold on the West coast of the United States. 

The mutation occurs in the spike protein, the part of the virus that attaches itself to cells and causes illness, and the part targeted by Covid-19 vaccines.

It did not cause alarm when it was first recorded in July, until it began tearing through the populations in both Northern and Southern California during late November and December. 

Now, two separate laboratories now believe that the acceleration in occurrences of the new variant may be to blame for California’s deadly Thanksgiving and Christmas surge because of its troubling mutations. 

California is inching toward a crisis, with more than 3.1m cases and at least 36,790 deaths —  figure that has doubled in less than three months. Los Angeles has emerged as one of America’s Covid-19 hotspots with two-thirds of its cases added since the beginning of November.

Timeline: The Kent Covid variant

Scientists increasingly believe B.1.426 may allow the virus to pass itself on with up to 50pc more efficiency, similarly to the British variant. Researchers are still working to understand if the California strain will be less effective against vaccines, as may be the case with the E484K strain found in South Africa. 

Dr Charles Chiu, who discovered the variant in his laboratory at University College San Francisco, told the Telegraph: "We should treat this new variant seriously."

His data found that its prevalence had grown from 3.8pc of cases to 25pc of cases in Northern California in November, and had been linked to several outbreaks which had mutations that bore similarity to the UK and South African variant. 

Dr Chiu, who was careful to add that the spike may be down to increased gatherings rather than the mutation, said that if they had not been searching for the UK strain, they “could have missed this at every level”.