CA Detects First Cases Of South African Coronavirus Variant

CALIFORNIA — A crowd chanted "recall Gavin" Wednesday morning as Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that the South African coronavirus variant had arrived in California.

Two cases of B.1.351 — one in Alameda County and another in Santa Clara County — were reported Wednesday morning through Stanford, Newsom said.

Some evidence suggests that current vaccines could be less effective against the South African variant, according to multiple news reports, but scientists are still researching their interactions with vaccines. There is currently no evidence that the variant causes a more serious case of COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The vaccines seem to be less effective [against the South African variant] but still provide a level of protection that should prevent most people from getting serious disease," said Dr. Timothy Brewer, a professor of infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. "So while the antibodies generated don't bind as well to that variant, they bind well enough that most people should still be protected from disease," he added in an earlier interview with Patch.

South Africa reportedly paused its rollout of a vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University after the vaccine offered "minimal protection" in a trial involving some 2,000 people, BBC News reported.

The variant was detected in 90 percent of new coronavirus cases in South Africa.

The news comes as coronavirus cases are going down statewide. The positivity rate has fallen from 14 percent to 4.8 percent in the past 30 days, Newsom said Wednesday. Hospitalizations have also declined by 34 percent over the last two weeks, he added.

Cases are gradually falling each week, but officials expressed concern about the variant first seen in the U.K., known as B.1.1.7, which is believed to be 50 percent more transmissible, according to a Jan. 22 CDC report.

The British variant has appeared mostly in San Diego, where more than 138 cases have been detected. Statewide, 159 cases have been reported. Cases have also been confirmed in Los Angeles, Orange, Alameda, San Mateo, San Bernardino and Yolo counties.

The mere mention of a more contagious version of COVID-19 is likely to raise hairs, but experts have said that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are still effective against it.

Some evidence suggests that the British variant may be associated with an increased risk of death, U.K. scientists reported last month. But other early reports found no evidence that the variant has any effect on disease severity, the CDC reported.

Between 1 percent and 4 percent of cases in the United States are now associated with the British variant, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said at a White House briefing Wednesday.

Meanwhile, more than 1,200 cases of two separate West Coast variants have been reported. It is unknown at this time whether the homegrown variants — B.1.427 and B.1.429 — are more contagious. The West Coast variants have also been found in 25 other states, according to news reports.

The news of variants comes as the CDC published new data on double masking. Wearing a cloth mask over a medical mask can block 92.5 percent of infectious particles, the new research found.

"We continue to recommend that masks should have two or more layers, completely cover your nose and mouth and fit snugly against your nose and the sides of your face," Walensky said.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 3,362,981 cases have been reported in California. Some 8,390 new cases were reported Wednesday, a significant reduction from 30 days ago when just shy of 50,000 cases were reported, Newsom said.

There have been 44,995 COVID-19 deaths in California to date.

A total of 5,089,484 vaccine shots have been administered so far. One in 10 people in the Golden State have been vaccinated, Newsom said.