More than 30 extremely mutated, never-before-seen Covid strains are lurking in multiple US states, DailyMail.com can reveal.
A team of scientists from the University of Missouri has tracked these so-called “cryptic” variants by testing wastewater samples across the country.
They have so far discovered 32 strains in 13 states — including New York, California and Florida — but say these cases are just the tip of the iceberg.
The viruses are housed by people known as “long-distance pullers,” patients who struggle for months or even years to clear the Covid infection, giving the virus an unusually long time to mutate.
Dr. Marc Johnson, the Missouri virologist leading the study, warned that the strains are so mutated that they would immediately be classified as “variants of concern” if they started to spread.
Move around the map to see how many cryptic lineages have been discovered in your state!
Scientists have discovered 32 cryptic lines in 13 states over the past two years. This includes 10 cases in New York City alone and four in California
Dr. Marc Johnson (pictured), a virologist at the University of Missouri, told DailyMail.com that finding the people with cryptic lineages could give a better understanding of the virus and why it causes “long Covid.”
“I suppose the cryptic lineages are the tip of the iceberg,” Dr Johnson said.
“When there are so many long-term infections [we have found]how much do we not detect.’
He believes that more resources should be invested in finding these strains, saying, “It would be worthwhile to find out who has the infection and why.”
The scientist isn’t sure if the patients shedding the new variants are contagious or how they managed to stay infected for so long.
Dr. Johnson does not think they are contagious. But he warns that if patients continue to carry the viruses, there is a risk that they will develop a mutation that will allow them to spread rapidly through the population.
None of the patients with a cryptic lineage has been identified and little is known about any of them.
Last year in a reportDr Johnson’s team wrote that: ‘The simplest explanation for the appearance of cryptic lineages in wastewater is that they are expelled from patients with suppressed immune systems and persistent infections.’
Patients who contain viruses for an exceptionally long time often have a weakened immune system, which means their bodies have trouble clearing the virus.
Many scientists believe that the Alpha, Delta, and Omicron variants all originated this way.
They probably all have some kind of genetic mutation in common that allows the virus to escape their immune system for so long.
“I suspect there is something similar with these patients, but it may not be clear,” he said.
He believes one in 4 million people has or has had one of these types. This would mean that there are about 80 cryptic lines in circulation.
So far, ten have been discovered in New York City – more than double that of any individual state.
The virologist said this is because the city is so densely populated that there are more people in the big apple’s wastewater samples than other areas.
As a result, it’s easier to track down these species in the Big Apple than anywhere else.
Four have been discovered in California, and one to three lines have been found in 11 other scattered states.
These include: Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
‘I wasn’t looking for them; we just started ranking things that didn’t match,” Dr. Johnson said of his first encounters with the genders.
Wastewater sequencing is a tool used by virologists and public health experts to collect data on the prevalence of various viruses in a local community.
Scientists will collect and test sewage samples to look for different strains.
Because a person sheds the virus in feces before developing symptoms, this kind of surveillance could allow public health experts to get ahead of some outbreaks.
One such strain was found in Central Ohio, where Dr. Johnson believes they have found a person who has been infected with the virus for at least two years.
This person regularly commutes between Columbus – the state’s largest city – and Washington Court House, a small town 15,000 miles southwest.
Researchers have discovered that the same cryptic lineage has been circulating between the two cities since at least March 2021.
To the best of scientists’ knowledge, this same lineage has not been found anywhere else.
This particular pattern likely means the person lives in Washington Court House and commutes to Columbus.
It could be for work, but the patient could also be a student, as Columbus is home to Ohio State University – which has over 66,000 students.
It’s unclear how the person carried the virus for so long, but it’s likely the virus mutated in him to cause minor complications.
Overall, there are probably only a few thousand people who meet these guidelines, a relatively small group that should be searched.
In the spring of 2022, Dr. Johnson found a cryptic trunk in Wisconsin. The affected person lost their viral load at an exorbitant rate.
His team tested water in manholes in the area and managed to pinpoint where the cargo came from.
At the end of the summer of 2022, they linked the species to a toilet in a specific building, where many people worked who came to work every day. One of those employees carries the cryptic tension, Dr. Johnson believes.
A person in Ohio has been infected with Covid for more than two years. Researchers found they commute regularly from the small town of Washington Court House, about 40 miles northeast of Columbus, Ohio. They probably live in Washington and work or go to school in Columbus
The Covid strain of man has evolved significantly differently from existing strains such as the Omicron and Delta variants familiar to the populace. Pictured: A viral ‘boom’ showing how different versions of Covid have evolved. Clustered in the center (blue arrow) are known variants that are distributed around the world. Within these strains there are thousands if not millions of mutations that set them apart. However, the strain of the unknown Ohio individual (red line) mutated completely separately. The viral composition is very different from other versions of the virus, and the evolutionary chain is linear – without thousands of branches. This indicates that the tribe only circulates in one individual.
The company has agreed to allow Dr. Johnson to collect stool samples from some employees to determine who is carrying the strain.
The typical case of Covid only lasts a few days – and the maximum time someone should be sick is two weeks.
Dr. Johnson hopes that finding the people harboring these cases may allow scientists to learn more about the virus itself and whether this cryptic lineage is related to the “lung Covid” phenomenon.
“I suppose the cryptic lineages are the tip of the iceberg. If there are so many long-term infections, how many more are we not detecting,” he explained.
“It would be worth finding out who has these infections and why.”
In March 2021, Dr. Johnson first encountered a mysterious lineage while sequencing wastewater in Missouri.
His team discovered a strain of Covid they had never seen before. Over a month, they discovered 12 samples of a strain with up to six mutations that differed from the typical circulating strains.
Expanding their research, scientists would find six unknown genera circulating in New York City over the next few months, one in California and a second in Missouri.
Calling them “cryptic genera,” they set out to determine where they came from.
Initially, the virologists thought the strains were circulating in animals. Rats were an easy answer because of how many rats infest New York City’s sewers.
However, some strains showed RNA that was inconsistent with a rodent infection, and the mutations the viruses picked up on were human “immune escape mutations,” meaning they would help a person’s immune system evade.
If rats harbored the strains, they wouldn’t mutate to escape the human immune system.
Patients probably don’t know they have Covid. Instead, they are asymptomatic or suffer from symptoms similar to a stomach infection.
These include diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and other relatively manageable symptoms.
In many cases, the person will still be able to perform daily activities, such as going to work or taking care of the children.