A strain of the coronavirus that was first seen in Italy is now the dominant strain of the virus, a group of scientists said Thursday.
In an article published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Cell, researchers working with the Sheffield COVID-19 Genomics Group announced that the new strain “has become the most common form in the global pandemic.” The strain is different from the one that appeared in Wuhan, China, the city where the coronavirus is believed to have originated.
According to the scientific journal, monitoring the frequency of the virus revealed a prevalence of the dominant strain, labeled G614, which took over the prevalence of D614, the original strain.
“Dynamic tracking of variant frequencies revealed a recurring pattern of G614 increase at multiple geographic levels: national, regional, and municipal. The change occurred even in local epidemics where the original D614 form was well established before the introduction of the variant G614 “. Scientists wrote in their abstract, referring to the two strains.
“The consistency of this pattern was highly statistically significant, suggesting that the G614 variant may have an aptitude advantage,” they continued.
However, scientists cannot agree on the reasoning for the new strain’s domain: The study researchers suggested that the newer strain may be more virulent, while others stated in the comments included in the study that the domain could be due to its spread in the U.S.
The United States has failed to mitigate its surge in new coronavirus infections recently, and now has more confirmed cases than any other country.
The study researchers added that while their findings may indicate that the new strain of the virus has a higher transmission rate, there was still no evidence to suggest that it was a more serious strain than is believed to have originated in the late last year in Wuhan.
“In infected individuals, G614 is associated with lower RT-PCR cycle thresholds, suggesting higher upper respiratory tract viral load, although not increased disease severity,” they wrote.
The United States now has more than 2.7 million confirmed cases of the virus, and on Thursday set another record for new coronavirus cases in a 24-hour period.
Italy, which was hit by the virus earlier this year, has seen its trend of new cases drop and now reports less than 200 a day across the country.
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