Scientists Say They’ve Identified Mutated COVID-19 Strain — and Issue a Dire Warning About New Contagion; Your Genes Could Determine Whether Coronavirus Puts You in the Hospital

By The Blaze. Scientists say they have discovered what they believe is a mutated strain of COVID-19 — and are now warning that this new strain could be way more contagious than plain old coronavirus. . .

According to a Tuesday report in the Los Angeles Times, researchers say that a new “mutant” strain of coronavirus has emerged. (Read more from “Scientists Say They’ve Identified Mutated COVID-19 Strain — and Issue a Dire Warning About New Contagion” HERE)

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Your Genes Could Determine Whether Coronavirus Puts You in the Hospital — and We’re Starting to Unravel Which Ones Matter

By Market Watch. . .Could genetic differences explain the differences we see in symptoms and severity of COVID-19?

. . .When a virus infects human cells, the body reacts by turning on what are essentially antivirus alarm systems. These alarms identify viral invaders and tell the immune system to send cytotoxic T cells — a type of white blood cell — to destroy the infected cells and hopefully slow the infection.

But not all alarm systems are created equal. People have different versions of the same genes — called alleles — and some of these alleles are more sensitive to certain viruses or pathogens than others. . .

Based on our study, we think variation in HLA genes is part of the explanation for the huge differences in infection severity in many COVID-19 patients. These differences in the HLA genes are probably not the only genetic factor that affects severity of COVID-19, but they may be a significant piece of the puzzle. It is important to further study how HLA types can clinically affect COVID-19 severity and to test these predictions using real cases. Understanding how variation in HLA types may affect the clinical course of COVID-19 could help identify individuals at higher risk from the disease.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate the relationship between viral proteins across a wide range of HLA alleles. Currently, we know very little about the relationship between many other viruses and HLA type. In theory, we could repeat this analysis to better understand the genetic risks of many viruses that currently or could potentially infect humans. (Read more from “Your Genes Could Determine Whether Coronavirus Puts You in the Hospital — and We’re Starting to Unravel Which Ones Matter” HERE)

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