New York lab to step up search for Covid-19 variants

New York, February 2 (Xinhua) -- State government officials have repeatedly emphasized concerns that a highly transmissible COVID-19 variant could take root in the state, ultimately leading to greater pressure on the hospital system, a U.S. newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Understanding whether variants are widespread will require widespread and regular genome sequencing, a Wall Street Journal article said, adding that New York labs are working to increase their capacity to conduct more genome sequencing to study the coronavirus. The entire genome, especially the most important surface proteins, indicates whether it is a variant.

Genomic sequencing of COVID-19-positive samples in New York is primarily performed by public laboratories in the state and New York City, as well as by several academic medical centers. The number of sequences performed in a week across the state is not tracked in one place.

As of Sunday, 42 people in New York state had been found to be carrying the variant first detected in the United Kingdom, and no residents had been found to be carrying the variants first detected in South Africa and Brazil, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said at a press conference on Monday that the variants were causing growing uncertainty.

"Overall, COVID-19 infections are going down," he said. "The only question mark is what is the underlying problem, is one of these strains."

As of Tuesday morning, the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering reported 43,805 coronavirus deaths in New York state, the worst in the nation.