Experts have shed new light on a variant of COVID-19 discovered in a nursing home in Kentucky, which has infected at least 45 residents and health care staff.
The strain has five mutations seen in other variants, plus many unique ones. According to MSN News, Many residents of the Kentucky nursing home were fully vaccinated, but the evolved virus was able to circumvent their anti-body protection.
An investigation by the Kentucky Department of Public Health revealed an unvaccinated, infected staff member initiated the outbreak in early March, resulting in a wave of infections. An article published on Forbes written by William A. Haseltine, a former Harvard Medical School professor, reported that the new variant—named R.1—was first found in Japan.
It has infected more than 10,000 people globally, according to GISAID SARS-CoV-2 database. Haseltine warned that the new variant has additional mutations that could give it an advantage in transmission, replication, and immune suppression.
WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have three categories of COVID variants that make up their watch lists: variants of interest, variants of concern—
which include alpha, beta, delta, and gamma—and variants of high consequence. The R.1 variant has a mutation that can lead to “increased resistance to antibodies,” according to Forbes, which could make it better able to evade antibodies generated by the vaccine and those who have been infected by the virus already.
