Undetected coronavirus variant was in at least 15 countries before its discovery

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-04/uota-ucv040121.php

 

News Release 1-Apr-2021
University of Texas at Austin

 

A highly contagious SARS-CoV-2 variant was unknowingly spreading for months in the United States by October 2020, according to a new study from researchers with The University of Texas at Austin COVID-19 Modeling Consortium. Scientists first discovered it in early December in the United Kingdom, where the highly contagious and more lethal variant is thought to have originated. The journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, which has published an early-release version of the study, provides evidence that the coronavirus variant B117 (501Y) had spread across the globe undetected for months when scientists discovered it.

"By the time we learned about the U.K. variant in December, it was already silently spreading across the globe," said Lauren Ancel Meyers, the director of the COVID-19 Modeling Consortium at The University of Texas at Austin and a professor of integrative biology. "We estimate that the B117 variant probably arrived in the U.S. by October of 2020, two months before we knew it existed."


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