First Case Of The Lambda Covid Variant Reported In Los Angeles, But It's Not Yet Much Of A Match For
First Case Of The Lambda Covid Variant Reported In Los Angeles, But Its Not Yet Much Of A Match For Delta
The first case of the much-talked-about Lambda variant of Covid-19 was reported by Los Angeles health officials on Thursday. But for all the fanfare, Lambda doesnt seem to have been much of a match for Delta yet.
Weve only seen one Lambda variant among tests sequenced in our labs, and this was a sample from June, said L.A. County Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer. The fact that Lambda was sequenced in June and has not been found since would seem to indicate its not spreading rapidly if at all in the county which, according to Ferrer, saw the powerful Delta variant account for 99% of all sequences last week.
Lambda was first identified in Peru in December 2020, according to the World Health Organization. Its become the dominant strain in South America, spread overseas and been identified as a variant of interest by WHO. Scientists are still trying to understand whether Lambda is more transmissible, but a July study, which has yet to be peer reviewed, indicated Lambda may be able to evade vaccines.
Los Angeles only genomically sequences a small number of positive test samples every week which are flagged by medical experts as possible variants of interest or concern.
Read more:
https://deadline.com/2021/08/first-case-of-lambda-variant-in-los-angeles-1234814899/