Yuck: ‘Cryptic’ COVID Variant Found in NYC Sewers May Be From Rodents

The next variant of the coronavirus may come courtesy of NYC’s rat population.

A new study published this month in the journal Nature Communications has attempted to trace the origins of mystifying virus fragments found over the last year in New York’s sewage. The “cryptic lineages” surfacing from the city’s dank underbelly are different than all known COVID variants, leading scientists to believe a curious new version of the virus may be percolating in the boroughs’ sewage.

While some researchers believe the latest take on COVID-19 can be attributed to yet unsequenced human strains of the virus, others believe it is a new, rat-born variant.

“One of the amino-acid changes that we’re seeing in the virus has not been seen in patients. Ever. But this amino-acid change has been seen in rodent-adapted virus, which really says something to me,” Marc C. Johnson, a University of Missouri virologist and co-author of the new study, told Curbed of the reasoning behind the variant being born of rats. Rodents, he added, were not susceptible to the original strain of COVID, but can be infected by its Alpha, Beta and Gamma editions. (Read more from “Yuck: ‘Cryptic’ COVID Variant Found in NYC Sewers May Be From Rodents” HERE)

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