Scientists say strain of coronavirus dominant around the world is different than what was seen in Wuhan

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The Hill

A strain of the coronavirus that was first seen in Italy is now the dominant strain of the virus, a group of scientists said Thursday.

In an article published by the peer-reviewed science journal Cell, researchers working with the Sheffield COVID-19 Genomics Group announced that the new strain "has become the most prevalent form in the global pandemic."

The strain is different than what appeared in Wuhan, China, the city where the coronavirus is believed to have originated. 

According to the science journal, tracking of the virus frequency revealed a prevalence of the dominant strain, labeled G614, that took over the prevalence of D614, the original strain.  

"Dynamic tracking of variant frequencies revealed a recurrent pattern of G614 increase at multiple geographic levels: national, regional and municipal. The shift occurred even in local epidemics where the original D614 form was well established prior to the introduction of the G614 variant," the scientists wrote in their abstract, referring to the two strains.

"The consistency of this pattern was highly statistically significant, suggesting that the G614 variant may have a fitness advantage," they continued.

However, scientists cannot agree on the reasoning for the new strain's dominance — researchers with the study suggested that the newer strain may be more virulent, while others contended in comments included with the study that the dominance could be due to its spread in the U.S.