ABC News
Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest?
OffOn
Even more variants may be identified in the coming weeks, experts said.
• 6 min read
Researchers at Ohio State identify 2 new COVID-19 variants
Infectious disease specialist Dr. Todd Ellerin discusses the COVID-19 virus being in full resurgence in big cities. Joshua Roberts/Getty Images, FILE
Two independent research groups published findings confirming what many scientists have long suspected: The U.S. has its own unique COVID-19 viral variants that are distinct from the U.K. and South African lineages making headlines in recent weeks.
On Wednesday, researchers from the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center announced two distinct, newly identified variants. The next day, researchers at Southern Illinois University said they found a variant that may have emerged months ago and quickly spread across the country. The variant is likely the same or similar to one of the variants identifi
CDC modeling suggests the more infectious UK variant could be dominant in the US by mid-March
The report warned of a significant increase in cases due to the variant, but did not specify how many
More cases would overwhelm hospitals, resulting in more deaths CDC wrote
So far, at least 95 Americans in 15 states have the UK super-covid variant
More than 23 million Americans have had COVID-19 and nearly 380
Researchers Discover New Variant of COVID-19 Virus in Columbus, Ohio
January 13, 2021
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine have discovered a new variant of SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The new variant carries a mutation identical to the U.K. strain, but it likely arose in a virus strain already present in the United States. The researchers also report the evolution of another U.S. strain that acquired three other gene mutations not previously seen together in SARS-CoV2.
The Ohio State Wexner Medical Center has been sequencing the genome of SARS-Cov-2 viruses in patients with COVID-19 since March 2020 in order to monitor the evolution of the virus. The new variant was discovered in one patient from Ohio, so researchers do not yet know the prevalence of the strain in the population.