{"id":3785,"date":"2023-06-06T20:21:12","date_gmt":"2023-06-07T01:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=3785"},"modified":"2023-06-06T20:29:20","modified_gmt":"2023-06-07T01:29:20","slug":"mysterious-covid-strain-found-in-central-ohio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/06\/06\/mysterious-covid-strain-found-in-central-ohio\/","title":{"rendered":"Mysterious COVID strain found in central Ohio"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NBC<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Viral researchers believe someone in central Ohio has been infected with COVID-19 for at least two years, and they want to find that person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the researchers believe there is no threat to public health, they hope this case holds much-needed answers to treating long COVID.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Molecular virologist Dr. Marc Johnson, a microbiology professor at the University of Missouri\u2019s medical school, spent much of his career studying HIV. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That changed in early 2020 when Missouri health officials asked him to lead the state\u2019s wastewater sampling program to help track COVID outbreaks. At the time, Johnson said there was not much data available on the genetic material of the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was no protocol established at that point for sequencing SARS-CoV-2 from wastewater, so I developed my own,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the virus evolved into different variants, like Delta and Omicron, sequencing its genetic material helped identity which strains were more prevalent in different areas. That\u2019s when Johnson discovered what he calls \u201ccryptic\u201d strains, or \u201ccryptics.\u201d \u201c(Cryptics) have certain patterns; there are certain mutations that they regularly accumulate that are not in a circulating lineages,\u201d Johnson said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson found that these unique versions of the virus would linger in one wastewater system for a period of time and suddenly disappear. At first, he could not understand why these mutated sequences weren\u2019t spreading, even in densely populated areas like New York City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought it was coming from the rats, simply because I couldn\u2019t think of anything else that was\u2013 had enough mass in the sewer shed that wouldn\u2019t move around,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe\u2019ve tested more rat feces than I care to remember.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n

WKIPI CdC sD<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NBC Viral researchers believe someone in central Ohio has been infected with COVID-19 for at least two years, and they want to find that person. While the researchers believe there is no threat to public health, they hope this case holds much-needed answers to treating long COVID. Molecular virologist Dr. Marc Johnson, a microbiology professor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3785"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3786,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785\/revisions\/3786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}