COVID-19 virus variants are evolving ‘escape’ mutations -- and immune-compromised patients provide a breeding ground

For more than two months, a 73-year-old cancer patient fought COVID-19 at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. His doctors did genomic sequencing on blood and respiratory samples collected as he got better and then, suddenly, worse. They chronicled the emergence of a slew of coronavirus mutations — including an ominous one that is part of strains from the United Kingdom and South Africa now sweeping around the globe, threatening the effectiveness of new vaccines. New cases in Montgomery County and at Penn show the coronavirus variant is spreading across the Philly region The thing is, ...