Researchers Find Link Between Early COVID-19 Cases in Southern California and New York

A recent Cedars-Sinai study said that most COVID-19 patients in Southern California during the early months of this global health crisis seemed to have been infected by a variation of SARS-CoV-2 virus to the said region from New York State, not directly from China where the virus reportedly originated, but via Europe.

These research findings were derived from a genetic analysis of SARS-Cov-2, which was found in tissue samples of over 190 Cedars-Sinai patients who were diagnosed with COVID-19.

According to the study authors, they believed their work was the first published "genetic characterization of SARS-CoV-2," specifically of the population in Los Angeles utilizing an advanced approach identified as next-generation sequencing, which examines all genes or genome of a virus or other organism.

This new research was published in the JAMA Network Open journal's October 7 issue.

According to assistant professor Eric Vail, based on the results, they concluded, "SARS-CoV-2 was likely introduced into the LA community primarily from NY."

However, researchers did not dismiss the fact that COVID-19 spread in LA and numerous other independent transmission paths that included Washington state and China.

Vail is also the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine's Molecular Pathology director at Cedars-Sinai, the study's co-senior.

ALSO READ: Review Cites Post-COVID-19 Syndrome as Cause of Heart Damage in Children

Virus Samples Studied

The study authors specifically found that roughly 15 percent of the virus samples taken from the Cedars-Sinai patients with COVID-19 between March 22 and April 15 were inherently similar to published profiles of viruses, specifically that of the SARS-CoV-2 from Asia.

Meanwhile, 82 percent of the samples were found to have shared close similarities with variants of the virus that originated in Europe.

Co-senior author of the study and research scientist at the Cedars-Sinai Center of Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics, Jasmine Plummer, Ph.D. said it was surprising to them "that New York appeared to be a source of so much of the LA virus," especially, as the first confirmed COVID-19 case in the United States involved a patient who had returned to Washington state following a visit in China.

Additionally, investigation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus applying next-gen sequencing proved to be so exact that the authors were able to detect an exceptional cluster of 13 COVID-19 patients, "all members of the same religious denomination" residing within a 2.4-mile range of each other.

DON'T MISS THIS: COVID-19 Update: Recent Developments Regarding the Infectious Disease

A Ground-Breaking Study

This particular result pointed to the probability of utilizing such an approach to monitor the local community spread of the infectious disease.

Academic Pathology chair and Pathology and Laboratory Medicine professor at Cedars-Sinai David Frishberg, MD, said, this ground-breaking study provides data for the advancement of comparative genetic assessment of determining features unique, specifically to SARS-CoV-2.

Dr. Frishberg also said sequencing findings offer critical information about this disease that has now killed over 1 million since the onset of the pandemic, as well as its origins and progression, "And they may even contribute to the prediction of its future trajectory."

As of this writing, since its onset, COVID-19 has infected more than 36 million people and killed over 1 million globally.

Of all the countries affected, the US remains to have the highest number of cases, with more than 7 million cases and over 211,000 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Case Report at Children's National Hospital Raises Concern for Resistance to Antibiotic

Check out more news and information on COVID-19 on MD News Daily.

© MD News Daily.