New COVID-19 Variant Discovered in Texas

HOUSTON – As the majority of Texas residents are currently still fighting and attempting to evade the Delta variant of COVID-19, a large hospital in Houston has found more than 50 patients with the newly discovered Mu variant.

According to a Houston news outlet, on Aug. 6, a doctor with Houston Methodist Hospital confirmed that the Mu variant was not only found at the hospital but was in an overwhelming number of patients.

Last week the World Health Organization labeled the Mu variant as a "variant of interest." Dr. Fauci claims that the Mu variant was first identified in Colombia in January and now makes up 39 percent of all cases there.

The W.H.O. says the variant has the potential to evade immunity provided by vaccines and antibodies.

“These initial studies are being done in a laboratory. They’re being done in a Petri dish,” Dr. Wesley Long, medical director of diagnostic microbiology at Houston Methodist and a clinical pathologist told the Houston news outlet. “The research comes from labs — not what truly may be seen in actual human cases. Although they’re concerning, at this point, again Delta is still the main variant we need to be concerned about. It’s 99% of what we’re seeing now at Houston Methodist and has been for many many weeks, at this point,”

Other variants on the "variant of interest" list are Eta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, and Mu. The variants on the "variant of concern" list are Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta.