MU-ve Over 'Delta' - Scary New COVID Strain Detected in Major American City
If you turn on the news today, you’d be hard-pressed to find a station that isn’t broadcasting some form of COVID doom and gloom. This is the summer the the “delta” variant, and some familiar talking heads are beginning to once again sound the alarms.
But “delta” isn’t even the worst of it, according to experts, who’ve been fearful that the new “Mu” strain of COVID-19 may even be resistant to antibodies – both natural ones and those derived from vaccines.
Worse still: Mu just moved into Los Angeles.
Today, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health announced the Mu variant, for the first time, has been identified in the region. The numbers are still small; Only 167 Mu variants have been identified in L.A. County thus far. “These specimens were sequenced between June 19 and Augusts 21, with the majority of Mu specimens sequenced in July,” according to a statement from county public health officials.
There was no mention of those cases the day before from Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer briefed reporters on L.A. County’s Covid response. Mu, which is classified by WHO as “variant of interest,” did on the chart Ferrer presented Thursday, which graphed only “variants of concern.” Even if it had been, however, it would have barely registered next to Delta which, she said, is 99% of all variants identified.
The news comes as some hotspots within the US are reporting higher COVID-19 case rates than they did even a year ago, during the still fresh first wave of the pandemic.