Preprint: Cryptic Sars-CoV-2 Lineages Detected in NYC Wastewater – Possible Animal Reservoir Detected

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Researchers find signs of Covid-19 mutations in NYC sewage, pointing to possible dog and rat infections.  After months of testing and re-testing, they found four combinations of COVID mutations that, when compared to a global database of more than 2.5 million sequenced variants, had not been seen before. The four variants are at least somewhat antibody-resistant, which could reduce the effectiveness of vaccines, the researchers found.

As with other animals, COVID-19 could be infecting dogs and rats, leading to new mutations and an outbreak in New York City’s sewers. While animal-to-human transmission of the virus is exceedingly rare, it has been seen in the U.S. in minks

These lineages contain mutations rarely observed in clinical samples, including Q493K, Q498Y, H519N and T572N. Many of these mutations were found to expand the tropism of SARS-CoV-2 pseudoviruses by allowing infection of cells expressing the human, mouse, or rat ACE2 receptor.

TheCity.nyc report

MedrXiv paper: Tracking Cryptic Sars-CoV-2 Lineages Detected in NYC Wastewater

 

 

There is an updated report on the cryptic lineages here:

Preprint: Increasing frequency of cryptic SARS-CoV-2 lineages in New York sewers

** This post was originally published on July 30, 2021 **