Chinese scientists identify two strains of the coronavirus, indicating it’s already mutated at least once

[Jon Schultz]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/04/coronavirus-chinese-scientists-identify-two-types-covid-19.html

Chinese scientists identify two strains of the coronavirus, indicating it’s already mutated at least once

• The more aggressive type of virus was found to be prevalent in the early stages of the outbreak in Wuhan — the Chinese city where COVID-19 was first detected late last year.
• But the frequency of this type of virus has since decreased from early January, the scientists said.
• Researchers cautioned that data examined in the study was still “very limited.”

https://academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nsr/nwaa036/5775463

Edited March 4, 2020 by Jon Schultz
Added link to paper

[niman]

They are describing the orf8 lineage and saying the version in many US cities, including Seattle is the milder version.

Edited March 5, 2020 by niman

[Jon Schultz]

Isn't that the opposite of what you've been saying? I thought you had said the first-released sequences, of which there was a pretty large number, did not contain the orf8 changes, which weren't seen until a sequence from Guangdong province was released, and the first Washington case did have them plus an additional rare mutation by which we know he infected at least one other person and it spread in Washington from there. So that would indicate that the Seattle-area version is the more severe orf8 lineage, no? (And the first Seattle case got sicker by the day, despite everything they were doing, until they tried intravenous remdesivir.)

Edited March 5, 2020 by Jon Schultz

[niman]

Since the outbreak began in Wuhan,I assumed that the Wuhan sequences represented the reference sequence, as did Genbank,so I viewed difference from the reference sequences as mutations (although I prefer the term polymorphism).Most of the initial US sequences were the orf8 mutation linear (WA, IL, CA (LA), AZ). Only CA Orange Co match Wuhan sequences at the two informative positions.  Since these sequences were closer to the bat sequence, the authors claimed that the orf8 sequence was the reference and the Wuhan sequences had the two mutations, so they would say that the Seattle area sequences were the milder version.