Two independent research groups have published findings confirming what many scientists have long suspected: The US has its own unique COVID-19 viral variants that differ from the British and South African lines that have made headlines in recent weeks.
On Wednesday, researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center announced two different, newly identified variants. The next day, researchers at Southern Illinois University said they had found a variant that may have emerged months ago and spread rapidly across the country. The variant is likely the same or similar to one of the variants identified by the Ohio researchers.
Although viruses are constantly mutating, these mutations are not inherently dangerous, experts warned. More scientific experiments will be needed to show whether the newly identified US variants are more transmissible and deadly or if they can affect the vaccine.
And researchers predicted that even more variants could be identified in the coming weeks, as more scientists start looking for them.
“This should be a wake-up call that we are not doing enough genomic surveillance,” said Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and associate research scientist with the Center of Infection and Immunity at Columbia University’s School of Public Health.
“We will see many of these articles come out,” said Rasmussen, who was not involved in either study. “Or [the variants] be associated with increased transferability or not, remains to be seen. “
Since the emergence of new variants around the world, there are fears that they will cause more serious illnesses and deaths, be more transmissible and make vaccines ineffective. It started with variants identified from the UK and then South Africa, both of which are believed to be transferable, but not more deadly. But according to very preliminary research, they are unlikely to undermine current vaccines.
Researchers at Southern Illinois University call this American variant 20C-US. The variant is not new, only newly identified. Its origins can be traced back to a patient sample in Texas from May 2020. Since then, the variant appears to have traversed the country. According to Dr. Keith T. Gagnon, one of the lead investigators on the study released by Southern Illinois, 20C-US now compromises about 50% of the samples in the country. It is currently widespread in the Upper Midwest, which could be why Ohio State researchers discovered a strikingly similar variety.
Dr. Daniel Jones, one of the lead authors of the study from Ohio state, told ABC News that these variants could be of the same lineage, but more research is needed on each.
While some researchers, including Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House Task Force, have speculated that there may be an American variant circling the country, these two studies are the first rock-solid evidence of one.
Gagnon said it has taken scientists in the US months to identify this variant because the US does not systematically track and monitor the ever-changing genetic makeup of COVID-19 samples collected from patients.
Gagnon also said the 20C-US variant may be more transmissible, especially with the increase in infections in the fall and winter. The variant could have been lucky and gained a foothold as people spent more time indoors and saw family and friends on vacation without proper social distance and wearing a mask.
Now that multiple vaccines are available, there are fears that this new American variant will render the vaccines ineffective. But so far there is no evidence that the mutations affect the efficacy of the vaccines.
“Here it was, under our noses for months,” Gagnon said, meaning that volunteers vaccinated in the large, late vaccination trials were likely to be exposed and a majority of them protected.
“It doesn’t look like it will get in the way of vaccines,” Gagnon added. Ohio State researchers agreed with those sentiments at their press conference earlier this week.
The other variant that Ohio State researchers discovered was found in only one patient. It has seen similar mutations in the UK and South African variants but was not associated with travel and developed independently here in the U.S. It is unclear how much of the population has this variant and whether it will be a significant one.
Both groups recommended keeping calm and waiting for more experimental studies to determine what these variants will do.
“We’re not ready to overreact,” said Peter Mohler, chief scientific officer and co-author of the study at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
“We want to make sure we study them [variants] in the lab and get very good data ”to determine if they alter transmission and mortality, he added.
But researchers also warn that the longer COVID-19 has been around, the more likely there will be mutations and variants. And each time we will have to determine whether the variants are more transmissible or lethal.
Sean Llewellyn, MD, Ph.D., is a family physician at the University of Colorado and an employee of the ABC News Medical Unit. Sony Salzman is the coordinating producer of the unit.