All the COVID Variants of Concern
2 min readMarch 03, 2021 — Houston has experienced situations of every concerning variant of the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a large new genome sequencing review.

Public health and fitness authorities have flagged the six variants discovered in the research as problematic, for the reason that they have gene adjustments that may well make the virus far more contagious or aid it escape immunity from vaccines or past infections.

The new finding arrives as Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that he would elevate the mask mandate there, and “open Texas 100%.”

The preprint review, which has not yet been totally vetted by outside scientists, decoded genomes of SARS-CoV2 viruses isolated from more than 20,400 COVID clients, a selection that signifies about 4% of all the COVID circumstances viewed in that town in excess of the previous 12 months.

Houston is the fourth largest metropolis in the U.S. with an ethnically numerous population and an international port. It is also residence to some of the nation’s top rated virus hunters.

The research utilised a large enough sample of viruses to give a “deep and realistic” picture of the condition there, claimed Keith Jerome, MD, PhD, head of the virology division at the University of Washington, in Seattle.

“This is a very extraordinary piece of operate,” said Jerome, who was not associated in the analysis. “It is a single of the most comprehensive seems to be that we have experienced of the viruses in a supplied space everywhere in the United States.”

The study’s authors say that Houston could be the initially metropolis to locate all the variants, but it most likely is not the only just one to have them.



“it’s probably that there are other towns in the nation that have all these variants and simply usually are not conscious,” stated research author Wesley Very long, MD, professional medical director of diagnostic microbiology at Houston Methodist Hospital.

The genomes analyzed for the research date again to March 2020. The Houston Methodist health system is component of a world-wide community of genome sequencing labs identified as the ARTIC Network, which is generally on the lookout for new viral variants.

The variants detected in the research initially showed up in screening in December, Prolonged claims, and a lot more scenarios have been detected in January and February of this year.

