Two Cases Of COVID-19 Brazilian Variant Found In San Diego County

Speaker 1: 00:00 There is breaking news today that governor Newsome is expanding the pool of people who are eligible for a COVID vaccine. The state says starting April 1st, everyone, 50 years old and up can apply for a vaccine appointment and starting April 15th, people 16 and up will be eligible for the vaccine. That's the good news. The problematic news is that the Brazilian variant of COVID-19, which caused a deadly spike in cases in that country has been found in San Diego County. Officials say two people have been infected with what's being called the P one variant. One of the people came here from Mexico. The other is from San Diego and has not traveled. The two people do not know each other. Here's Dr. Eric McDonald, the county's medical director of epidemiology and immunization services. Speaker 2: 00:52 The Brazilian variant in particular is one that, um, does have, uh, decreased neutralization by Sera, which means that it is possible that the vaccine may be, or some vaccines may be less effective or that somebody who's already had COVID might be reinfected with the strain, Speaker 1: 01:13 Uh, whether the variant is more transmissible is still being investigated. Joining me of San Diego union Tribune health reporter, Paul Sisson. Paul, welcome back. Thanks for having me now, I suppose the fact that no connection has been found between the two people who tested positive for the Brazilian variant could mean the variant is in general circulation in San Diego. Speaker 3: 01:34 Yes, yes, exactly. Uh, you know, by process of elimination, if you have these two people that not knowing each other or ever having had any contact with each other, uh, then, uh, that's exactly what Dr. McDonald concluded at yesterday's press conference. Uh, they, they do believe that this variant is in general circulation in San Diego County. Uh, I talked to Dr. Christian Anderson over at Scripps research Institute, uh, yesterday. And he said, he thinks, you know, it's not really showing up in their, uh, genetic surveillance that they're doing have a positive test results. Uh, so he said, he thinks its prevalence is still, probably under 1% of all cases that are coming in Speaker 1: 02:14 And have other cases been found in California. Speaker 3: 02:16 Yes. Uh, so far they've announced that they found a total of four, uh, that total appears to include one of our two cases. Uh, and I think that their last update was on the 19th of this month. Uh, so I think a few other cases, including one here in San Diego County, uh, have been reported to the California department of public health, but haven't yet been added to the total. So I think we're probably going to get an update on that, uh, still this week Speaker 1: 02:42 Now, how did the P one variant effect Corona virus cases in Brazil? Speaker 3: 02:47 Gosh, you know, it really just, it just caused them to have a massive uptick, uh, here in the spring, you know, they had, they had a really big outbreak in, in, uh, you know, started the now and then spread throughout much of the country, uh, late last year. Um, and this appeared to be just mostly, uh, the, the more commonly, uh, circulating variants, uh, that have spread out of Wuhan China. Uh, but, but then, uh, you know, and so, so a lot of, uh, of the countries, uh, a lot of the States there in Brazil, uh, had a high level of, you know, what we would call herd immunity. A lot of people had gotten infected and late in the year and it looked like a, you know, they were probably a lot of them going to be immune to getting any kind of re-infection. Uh, and then P one came along and, uh, reinfected, uh, uh, many, many people, uh, throughout the country. And to this day, they're, they're really struggling. I saw a government report yesterday that came out, uh, maybe like last week. And then it indicated that many of their intensive care units are, are now over 90% occupancy. Speaker 1: 03:50 Do we know if this variant is more deadly? Speaker 3: 03:54 Uh, it does not from what they can tell at the moment, you know, and they're still researching this, but what the experts have said is that they haven't seen a huge increase in mortality or transmission, uh, you know, on Twitter today, I saw some folks who said, uh, well, you know, actually we are seeing, uh, some additional, uh, uh, transmissibility, but other scientists are kind of pushing back against that these are prepress papers that haven't yet had full peer review. So it's a little hard to know exactly what to make of them, but it doesn't appear at the, at least at the outset that the, uh, transmissibility and, and, uh, and mortality factor is, is super higher than, than what we've already seen with other variants. Speaker 1: 04:36 Talk to you a minute about another variant, because when the [inaudible] variant first discovered in the UK, when that showed up in the us, there were concerns that would become the dominant strain by March. Has that happened? Speaker 3: 04:50 Last? I heard it had not yet happened in San Diego County, uh, Dr. Anderson over at Scripps research. He, he indicated to me, uh, about mid month that, uh, he felt like there was somewhere between 30 and 40% of the positive tests that were coming back in San Diego County were of the one, one seven variant. Uh, I think last month he said that he felt like we were still on track to, uh, reach dominance of one, one seven in San Diego County, uh, by the end of the month. But we haven't gotten a more recent update on that. So I have to confess that I'm not quite sure what their current thinking is. Uh, you know, we've, we've managed to vaccinate so many people now, uh, that, uh, that certainly plays into the equation. Speaker 1: 05:33 What do we know about this Brazilian variant? Do doctors think it could become dominant? Speaker 3: 05:38 Uh, I was just talking to Dr. Anderson about that, uh, over email this morning. Uh, he, he indicated that he doesn't really expect it to out-compete one, one seven. At this point, he says the evidence that he's seen, uh, seems to indicate that that one, one seven is just more transmissible. Uh, and so over time capable of, uh, of out competing, uh, P one or the, uh, the variant that that's come out of South Africa, Speaker 1: 06:03 We know if our current vaccines are effective against the P one variant, Speaker 3: 06:09 Uh, you know, the, the vote is still out on that to some degree. Uh, the, the most research, uh, that has been done, uh, has been for the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. They did test that pretty extensively in South America, and it looks like it may have a fair amount of, uh, of effectiveness against P one, but probably less so than the, than the strains that are, uh, that are coming out of a [inaudible], um, originally, uh, same with Moderna and, uh, and Pfizer, uh, you know, they're still doing research on vaccine efficacy, but, but early results from initial trials seem to indicate that you need somewhere between two and three times as many antibodies in your blood, uh, to fight off P one, uh, than, uh, than other, uh, more commonly circulating, uh, variants. Speaker 1: 06:58 Okay, then, so what is the health community saying about the best way to deal with this variant? Speaker 3: 07:04 Uh, they're saying, Hey guys, please continue to get vaccinated as quickly as possible. And in the meantime, please do everything you can, uh, to avoid getting infected. Uh, the more this thing replicates in our bodies, the more chances are that it, uh, that it has additional mutations. Uh, and so keeping the, the amount of infection low, uh, is just very critical at this, uh, at this moment that we're at where vaccination is really starting to take hold. Uh, I talked to Paul [inaudible] infectious disease expert on the, on the East coast earlier today. And he was saying, you know, we really do expect even with [inaudible], uh, if you're vaccinated, you should have a much lower chance of hospitalization or of death. So even if you do get infected, it's, uh, the consequences are much less likely to be severe if you're vaccinated. So, so the, the real critical take home at this moment is, is get vaccinated as soon as you possibly can. Speaker 1: 08:00 I've been speaking with San Diego union Tribune, health reporter, Paul Sisson, Paul, as always. Thank you very much. Speaker 3: 08:07 Thank you.