South African COVID-19 Variant Confirmed In Washington

OLYMPIA, WA — A new variant of the coronavirus has been detected in Washington state.

The B.1.351 variant was first identified in South Africa in December, but has since been found in 10 states — including this latest case in Washington. According to the state department of health, the case was identified in a King County patient who tested positive for the coronavirus back on Jan. 29. The DOH says any other details on the patient or the potential spread of the variant remain scarce, as the patient could not be reached through contact tracing efforts.

Experts say, now that the first case of the variant has been discovered, more are likely to turn up. Though case counts have recently been on the decline, these variants could undo that progress.

"The point of concern here is that if you look at our number of cases, it certainly looks like we're on decreasing case counts for COVID in general across the state of Washington. But I really want to caution us that the emergence of these variants, especially a doubling in the number of our variants detected this week, we're very concerned how this is going to affect our trajectory," said Scott Lindquist, the state's acting health officer.

Unlike the United Kingdom variant, B.1.1.7, this second COVID-19 variant does not appear to spread more easily or quickly than the predominant strain. However, it may be more resilient to vaccines.

The U.K. variant was first discovered in Washington in late January. State health experts say together, the two variants are cause for concern.

“COVID-19 is threatening us in new ways, and we need to rise to the challenge,” said King County Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin. “The B.1.1.7 variant can spread more readily and B.1.351 viruses might reduce vaccine effectiveness. For these reasons we need to continue to do all we can to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and push our case rates as low as possible.”

Related: King County Warns Variant Strain Could Stir Coronavirus 'Volcano'

The new South African variant was identified during genome sequencing at the UW Medicine Virology Lab. Around the same time, the lab also discovered 19 additional cases of the faster spreading U.K. variant, bringing the total number of known B.1.1.7 cases in Washington to 39.

A third variant, the P.1 variant, has been discovered in Brazil and has made its way to America, but has not yet been detected in Washington. Now that two new strains of the virus have been confirmed in the Evergreen State, health leaders say it's more important than ever to continue following COVID-19 safety guidelines.

“This means limiting activities outside the home, wearing well-made and well-fitting face masks, avoiding or limiting time indoors with others outside the home and in crowded indoor spaces, improving indoor ventilation, and good hand washing," Duchin said.

More information on COVID-19 variants can be found on the Washington State Department of Health's website.