A new COVID-19 variant has been discovered in the pelican state. It was first detected in the US last March.
There is no classification or Greek alphabet name– such as delta variant– because of the small number of samples that have been obtained.
The hospitals Director of Genomics and Surveillance saying that barring change, she doesn’t see any reason for worry.
“Unless we see a sharp uptick in numbers for this variant, I don’t think there is cause for concern.” said Krista Queen Director of Genomics and Surveillance at LSU Health.
“Delta is much more transmissible and that’s why over 99.9% of all the virus’s we sequence are Delta. The Delta variant does not contain this mutation. So this specific mutation is the E484Q mutation and it’s something we have seen in other variants previously so we know it has the ability to help the virus escape the immune response.” Queen would go on to say.
The hospital, saying they will continue to keep an eye on the variant and how frequently it appears in future tests.