Patrick Ayscue News Today

The evolutionary arms race between humans and the virus is far from over, say biologists. This new relationship could get better — or suddenly worse.

As it races around the world, the COVID-19 omicron variant shows tantalizing hints that it could morph into the ideal virus: highly transmissible, to be sure, but tamed by vaccines

Omicron has an impressive number of mutations. Many, including those that could increase...

California has dramatically improved its genomic sequencing capacity since the start of...

"In late January, Humboldt County Public Health said they submitted dozens of samples from individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 at the Granada Rehabilitation and Wellness Facility, along with dozens of random samples from the Humboldt County Public Health Lab (PHL), for routine genomic surveillance. Genomic sequencing of the samples was conducted by Chan Zuckerberg Biohub (CZ Biohub), a nonprofit medical research organization that has been responsible for about 45% of the genomic survei...

Posted By Thadeus Greenson@ThadeusGreenson on Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 8:36 AM click to enlarge Shutterstock Public Health reported this morning that a "never-before-seen COVID-19 variant" has been identified in Humboldt County, though "evidence suggests" it was limited to a single outbreak with no indication of...

CREDITS: (MAP) K. FRANKLIN/ SCIENCE; (DATA) GISAID; JOHNS HOPKINS CORONAVIRUS RESOURCE CENTER Since May 2020, Jeffrey Milbrandt has had his systems fine-tuned to sequence 1000 coronavirus samples a week. The director of a major sequencing center at Washington University in St. Louis (WashU), Milbrandt knew months ago that the United States urgently needed to identify and track emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2, the pandemic coronavirus already spreading across the nation. But to date, fewer than ...

Last modified on Tue 2 Feb 2021 10.39 EST Sign up for the Guardian Today US newsletter As researchers around the world scramble to understand the dangers of several newly discovered variants of the deadly coronavirus, the US remains woefully behind in its ability to track the mutations, scientists say. The federal government has had its “head in the sand”, failing to develop a coordinated surveillance system for tracking the genetic footprints of the virus, according to academic researchers...