PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — As new variants of coronavirus continue to pop up across the world, scientists are turning to genetic surveillance to stay ahead of the virus.
Genetic surveillance comes into play when scientists want to do a deep dive into a virus. Dr. Zachary Klase, at the Drexel University College of Medicine, discussed how it's done on the KYW Newsradio In Depth podcast.
"For you and me, that's a DNA sequence. For this virus, it's an RNA sequence," he explained, "and rather than just say, 'Yes, it's there,' you read every single one of those 30,000 pieces of code so you have a picture of exactly what this virus is."
Klase said in order to properly track new variants, about 5% of all samples would need to be analyzed.
"I think PA comes in at about 5,000 new cases a day over the last week or something so you need to be sequencing, what, 5%? That's like 250 everyday in order to do this."
The reason why we're not ahead of the game yet on genetic tracking is a logistics issue, according to Klase. The labs that give COVID-19 test results are not the same as genetic surveillance labs.
"We certainly have the resources, and by that I mean the equipment and the expertise you need to do sequencing," he said. "That's becoming more and more common in my realm."
However, Klase said the U.S. is behind the 8-ball when it comes to genetic surveillance.
"In January, we had sequenced 0.3, so what one in 300 of every COVID case that we had in the country," he said, "whereas the UK was at 5%, Denmark was at 12% and Australia has sequenced over half of their infections."
Many labs are willing to help, he indicated, including university labs. But there's a big opportunity for the CDC and individual states to step up.
"You think you want to do 23,000 samples per week to get to the 5%, you only need 20 labs. Now there's way more than that," he said, adding that a joint approach is necessary.
"It’s really just a logistics disconnect in getting the money, and the funding, and the samples all into the right place. 350 million people across 50 states, it's just a patchwork of different approaches that's not coming together real well."