ORLANDO, Fla. – Less than a week ago, Orange County confirmed the first residential case of the more viral COVID-19 U.K. variant, as of Monday that number is up to 10.
Florida also has more cases of the virus variant known as B.1.1.7 than any other state in the U.S. with 201 and growing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are more than 600 across the U.S.
While there is no reason to believe this variant first detected in the U.K. is more deadly, it has been found to spread more quickly and it’s not the only mutation of COVID-19. The CDC is now tracking mutations originating from South Africa (B.1.351) and Brazil (P.1) as well.
Epidemiologist Alvina Chu with the Orange County, Florida Department of Health offered an analogy Monday during a county briefing with reporters to help explain how a virus mutation is created, in this case how the U.K., South Africa and Brazil variants were created.
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Essentially, it’s an issue of bad copy editing or a game of telephone.
Coronavirus is an RNA virus, which means COVID-19 is encoded in ribonucleic acid or RNA. When someone is infected with COVID-19 it creates 100 million copies of the virus RNA inside their body, Chu explained.
“If I were to say to you, I would like you to copy the same sentence 100 million times as fast as you can. You could expect that there might be some errors and so that’s potentially what occurs,” Chu said. “And then if I asked you to give your copies to someone else and ask them to do the same thing, and translate, so 100 million times, you copy as fast as you can. There can be this accumulation of errors.”
Some of these errors mean nothing and the virus can read through the RNA and continue on as it reproduces, Chu explained.
“But sometimes some of these mutations can aid the virus in becoming a better spreader,” Chu said.
A virus, like the novel coronavirus, has one goal, Chu said, to reproduce and infect as many people as possible and these mutations can help that goal by creating advantages to multiply faster. It’s even possible these variants could overtake the original strains, which is why vaccinating as many people as possible is critical right now, she explained.
“This is where we are with this race in getting vaccine and immunity to persons,” Chu said. “We’re essentially in a wildfire with a really good vaccine, which is our fire hose. And so, as much as you can get the fire under control at one level, containing the spread is what will help us gets the pandemic under control.”
There are three variant health officials are keeping a close watch on through virologic surveillance. In Florida, Chu said a major testing lab is involved in some of this surveillance.
So far, the South Africa and the Brazil variants are in the single digits around the U.S., according to the CDC, with none in Florida yet.
For the 10 cases of the U.K. variant found in Orange County, none of the cases have been connected.
The patients are not known to each other, Chu said. However, the epidemiologist did say at least two of the 10 cases attended large gatherings either with family or members outside their home before testing positive for the B. 1.1.7. U.K. variant.
With these variants on the rise, Chu said it is critically important for everyone, even those who have had the COVID-19 vaccine, to social distance, wash their hands and take other precautions to stop the spread.
The variants “gain these advantages that either make them more virulent, or deadly to people, or that they gain a better way to infect people or spread faster,” Chu said. “The more that they spread and the faster they spread, the harder it is for us to be able to control the pandemic with our vaccinations.”
That means every COVID-19 infection is giving the virus a chance to mutate, creating possibly other variants.
“Until everyone is protected, no one is protected because every infection allows for the genetic mutations to occur,” Chu said.