As the country races to vaccinate as many Americans as possible against COVID-19, both New York and California are reporting new virus variants that might be more contagious than the original strain.

In New York, a new variant that carries a mutation that may weaken the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines has been identified as the B.1.526 variant. It was first discovered in November, and now accounts for about one in four viral sequences in a database shared by scientists, according to the New York Times.

In a paper published today from Columbia University, the authors noted a steady increase in the detection rate of B.1.526 cases from late December to mid-February, with a rise of 12.3% in the past 2 weeks.

Cases have been detected across New York City, researchers said, and threaten to once again make the city a hot spot of viral infection. They say the strain’s “unique set of spike mutations may also pose an antigenic challenge for current interventions,” such as vaccines and monoclonal antibody therapies.

India reports 16,738 new Covid cases, highest since January 29

The daily rise in coronavirus infections in India was recorded above 15,000 after nearly a month taking the country’s total tally of COVID-19 cases to 1,10,46,914, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Thursday, Feb 25.  A total of 16,738 infections were reported in a day, while the death toll increased to 1,56,705 with 138 daily new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed. On January 29, 18,855 new infections were recorded in a span of 24 hours after which the daily rise of cases stayed below 15,000. The daily deaths were registered above 130 after a gap of 26 days. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,07,38,501 which translates to a national COVID-19 recovery rate of  97.21 per cent and the case fatality rate stands at 1.42 per cent.

The active caseload increased to 1,51,708 which  comprises 1.37 per cent of the total infections, the data stated.

India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16.It went past  60 lakh on September 28,  70 lakh on  October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.