In December, a new variant, which was first found in California, is said to be more contagious than earlier forms of coronavirus. Two new studies have shown that such emerging mutants may hinder a sharp decline in cases in the same emerging state and perhaps elsewhere.

New York City is facing a new form of coronavirus, which is spreading rapidly in the City. This new coronavirus is carrying a mutation that is a cause of concern as it is anticipated that it may weaken the vaccines’ effectiveness. The two teams of researchers engaged in coronavirus study have found the stated fact.

The New York, New coronavirus version is named B.1.526. This virus was first seen in the specimens collected in the month of November in New York. As time passed, in the middle of the november month, it was seen that this virus was responsible for causing one out of the four viral sequences that were appearing in the database shared by scientists.

A study of the new version, led by a group at Caltech, was posted online on Tuesday. The Others, by researchers at Columbia University, have been submitted to a preprint server, but are not yet public.

According to the experts, Non of the studies conducted have been vetoed by peer review nor published in a scientific journal. Though consistent results suggest that the spread of variants is real.

“It’s not particularly happy news,”

said Dr. Michel Nussenzweig, an immunologist at Rockefeller University who was not involved in the new research.

“But just knowing about it is good, because then we can perhaps do something about it.”

Nussenzweig said that he was more concerned about the variants in New York, which were spreading rapidly in California. Yet another contagious new version, which was discovered in Britain, now accounts for about 2,000 cases in 45 states. It is expected to become the most prevalent form of coronavirus in the United States by the end of March.

Researchers are investigating the genetic material of the virus to see how it is changing. They examine the genetic sequences of viruses taken from a small proportion of infected people for the emergence of new versions.

Caltech researchers discovered an increase in B.1.526 by scanning for mutations in thousands of thousands of viral genetic sequences in a database called G.1AID. 

“There was a pattern that was recurring, and a group of isolates were focused in the New York area that I hadn’t seen,”

-said computational biologist Anthony West of Caltech.

He and his colleagues found two versions of coronavirus in frequency: one seen in South Africa and Brazil with the E484K mutation, which is believed to help the virus partially dodge the vaccine; And another one with a mutation called S477N, which can affect how strongly the virus binds to human cells.

By mid-February, the two had together collected about 27% of New York City viral scenes in the database, West said. (Currently, the two are put together as B.1.526.)

Columbia University researchers adopted a different approach. He took 1,142 samples from patients at his medical center. They found that 12% of people suffering from coronavirus were infected with the variant which includes the mutation E484K.

Patients infected with the virus carrying that mutation were on average about six years older and more likely to have been hospitalized. Director of Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, Dr. David Ho said

most patients were found in areas close to the hospital – particularly Washington Heights and Inwood – where many other cases were scattered throughout the metropolitan area.

“We see cases in Westchester, in the Bronx and Queens, in the lower part of Manhattan, and in Brooklyn,”

“So it starts getting wider. This is not a single outbreak. “

Several studies have now shown that variants with E484K mutations are less susceptible to vaccines than the original form of the virus. Mutations interfere with the activity of a class of antibodies that almost everyone makes, Nussenzweig said.

“Those who have overcome coronavirus or who have been vaccinated are likely to be able to fight this version, with no doubt about it,” he said. But “they can get a little sick of it.”

They said that they could also infect others and continue to transmit the virus, delaying herd immunity.

But other experts were slightly more optimistic.

“These things are a little less well controlled by the vaccine, but it’s not orders of magnitude below, which would terrify me,”

he said.

As the virus continues to develop, the vaccines will need to be tweaked, 

“but in the scheme of things, which are much bigger concerns than not having the vaccine, 

“I wouldn’t say that the glass is three-quarters full compared to last year.”