Health leaders confirmed it is linked to the outbreak at Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center that infected at least 15 patients and 74 hospital employees, including one who died. "That was certainly a very unusual outbreak with a lot of illnesses and it seemed to spread quite fast," Santa Clara County Public Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody said. "We are trying to understand whether the features of that outbreak are because of this variant. Does this variant of the virus behave in some different way?" UCSF virologist Dr. Charles Chiu said scientists are also trying to understand if the new strain is more transmissible.