*Gasp* ‘Double mutant’ COVID-19 strain emerges in California

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A new “double mutant” variant of the coronavirus has been discovered in California, with scientists worrying the strain could be more infectious.

The Stanford Clinical Virology Lab identified and confirmed one case of the variant — which first emerged in India — in the Bay Area, Stanford Health Care spokesperson Lisa Kim told the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday.

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It is not yet known whether this new COVID-19 variant is more infectious or resistant to the coronavirus vaccine, but Chin-Hong said it “makes sense” that it could be more transmissible.

“It also makes sense that it will be more transmissible from a biological perspective as the two mutations act at the receptor-binding domain of the virus, but there have been no official transmission studies to date,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle.

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“This Indian variant contains two mutations in the same virus for the first time, previously seen on separate variants,” the scientist said.

“Since we know that the domain affected is the part that the virus uses to enter the body, and that the California variant is already potentially more resistant to some vaccine antibodies, it seems to reason that there is a chance that the Indian variant may do that too,” he explained.

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