New California variant may be driving virus surge there, study suggests

As researchers in California searched in December for the U.K. coronavirus variant in patient samples, they discovered that California had its own variant. The new mutant is linked to a strain known as CAL.20C that likely emerged in July but started rapidly spreading in November. The CAL.20C strain accounted for more than one-half of the virus genome samples collected in Los Angeles laboratories on January 13, according to a new study. Jasmine Plummer, a research scientist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, who worked on the study, says: “We had our own problem that didn’t cross over from Europe. It really originated here, and it had the chance to start to emerge and surge over the holiday.” There is not yet evidence that CAL.20C is more likely to cause death or is more contagious compared with other coronavirus variants. However, Eric Vail, director of molecular pathology at Cedars-Sinai, believes it is possible that CAL.20C is playing a key role in the significant increase in cases in Southern California’s hospitals.