Reuters Carlo Allegri
American experts announced that they had discovered a new mutation of the emerging corona virus, which is spreading at a rapid pace in New York City.
Two teams of experts from the California Institute of Technology and Columbia University confirmed that the new strain, called B.1.526, was first discovered in samples collected in New York last November, indicating that it has spread widely in the city since then.
As of mid-February, the percentage of new cases of the new strain among the total number of new infected people in the city was about 12% (according to the Columbia University team data) or 27% (according to the California Institute of Technology team).
Experts from Columbia University pointed out that the new strain is similar in some ways to the two mutations recently discovered in South Africa and Brazil, and is believed to be more capable of spreading.
Source: New York Times + Reuters
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