Second COVID-19 variant detected in Whatcom County ‘cause for concern, but not alarm’
A second COVID-19 variant has been identified in Whatcom County, as the Washington State Department reported two new B.1.427 variants — one of two California “variants of concern” being tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The two B.1.427 variant cases were in addition to the 25 B.1.1.7 variant cases — also known as the U.K. variant — already seen in Whatcom County, according to the Washington State Department of Health’s SARS-CoV-2 Sequencing and Variants report released Thursday, March 25.
Whatcom’s B.1.1.7 variant case count was unchanged from last week’s report by the state and still second-most in the state behind King County’s 97 cases.
“The presence of new variants in Whatcom County and elsewhere in Washington is cause for concern, but not alarm,” the Whatcom County Health Department told The Bellingham Herald in an email. “It definitely demands we remain vigilant in our COVID-19 prevention efforts. These include mask-wearing, physical distancing, keeping gatherings small and infrequent, isolating and seeking testing if symptomatic, and getting vaccinated as soon as possible.”
Statewide, the Department of Health reports it has detected:
▪ 152 cases of the B.1.1.7 (U.K.) variant.
▪ 16 cases of the B.1.351 (South Africa) variant.
▪ Two cases of the P.1 (Brazil) variant.
▪ 82 cases of the B.1.427 (California) variant.
▪ 340 cases of the B.1.429 (California) variant.
▪ Three cases of the B.1.526 (New York) variant.
▪ Two cases of the B.1.525 (New York) variant.
▪ Eight cases of the P.2 (Brazil) variant.
Only the B.1.1.7 and B.1.427 variants have been detected in Whatcom County, as of Thursday’s report.
Like other variants, the B.1.427 is a mutation of the original SARS-CoV-2 virus that has caused the coronavirus pandemic, according to a March 19 story published by Prevention.com.
It and the B.1.429 variant have been dubbed the “California variant,” because they share three key mutations and were first detected in Los Angeles County in July 2020, according to Prevention.com.
The variants first discovered in California are less of a concern compared to those that emerged from the U.K. and South Africa, which studies show are 50% more transmissible than the original virus. The variant from California is 20% more transmissible, according to a story by the Sacramento Bee.
Like the B.1.1.7 variant, the CDC classifies both strains from California as “variants of concern” — the middle of three categories above “variants of interest” and below “variants of high consequence.”
The CDC says a “variant of concern” is one “for which there is evidence of an increase in transmissibility, more severe disease (increased hospitalizations or deaths), significant reduction in neutralization by antibodies generated during previous infection or vaccination, reduced effectiveness of treatments or vaccines, or diagnostic detection failures.”
The increased concern doesn’t mean preventive measures such as hand-washing, physical distancing and mask-wearing, as well as COVID-19 vaccines, are no longer fit to protect us, experts say. However, more research is needed to understand how much the vaccines’ effectiveness decreases when put up against the variants from California, and if that decrease matters.
“If we can get enough people vaccinated, we will be able to deal with these variants simply because we won’t have ongoing transmission,” Dr. Charles Chiu, an infectious diseases physician at the University of California, San Francisco, told The New York Times.
In Washington state, according to Thursday’s report, only 1% of B.1.427 variant cases have resulted in hospitalization and 1% have resulted in death. That is lower than the 5% hospitalization rate and 3% death rate for the B.1.1.7 variant.
Overall, COVID has had a 6% hospitalization rate and 1% death rate in the state, according to the report.
