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‘Minefield’ of variants: How the California strain is different from the others
COVID-19 snakes through cities and countries, it has changed, morphed and mutated.The latest iteration of the respiratory disease making waves is one first identified in California. The Western state is now teeming with the variant, known as B.1.427/B.1.429.Its recent role in creating a heavily-mutated virus hybrid has raised eyebrows worldwide, but experts are growing increasingly concerned about its individual behaviours.Here’s what we know so far:“A lot of the variants have very common mutations,” said Gerald Evans, chair of the infectious diseases division at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.The N501Y mutation, for example, is found in the variants that arose in the U.K, South Africa and Brazil.