WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE, Ohio — Scientists are trying to locate an Ohio resident who may be the longest-standing COVID-19 patient ever identified. The person is carrying a highly mutated version of the virus that has been detected through wastewater sampling and traced back to early 2021. According to Dr. Marc Johnson, a microbiologist at the University of Missouri, the virus is “unlike anything” experts have seen, and the mutations the strain has would be serious enough to make it a “variant of concern” if it began circulating in the population.
He found the virus in Columbus, the state’s largest city of nearly one million, and in Washington Court House.This same lineage has not been detected anywhere else to his knowledge. This specific pattern likely means the person lives in Washington Court House and commutes to Columbus. It could be for work, but the person could also be a student, as Columbus is home to Ohio State University — which has more than 66,000 students.
The virus has been detected repeatedly along a 40-mile area, signaling that one person is carrying and shedding it through their stool. Dr. Johnson believes the strain is being shed by the same person who regularly commutes between Columbus and Washington Court House. However, the scientist is unsure whether the person is contagious or how they have managed to stay infected so long. It is likely that the virus has mutated within the individual to cause little complications.
Dr. Johnson hopes to find this person to first get them medical attention but also to gather samples he can use to learn more about the cryptic strain. His team has been able to track down the holders of cryptic COVID-19 lineages in the past. In Spring 2022, they found a cryptic strain in Wisconsin, and the afflicted person was shedding viral load at an exorbitant rate. His team tested water in manholes in the area and managed to track down where the load was coming from. In late Summer 2022, they linked the strain to a toilet at a specific building, which employed many people who were coming to work each day. One of those employees is carrying the cryptic strain, Dr Johnson believes.
Dr. Johnson’s team has been analyzing COVID-19 samples from sewage across the US in search of “cryptic” strains – new variants of the virus that have emerged with unknown origins. The technique was used as a tool throughout the pandemic because the virus shows up in stool before someone suffers symptoms, and wastewater data could help detect where outbreaks were going to emerge days in advance.
“There is a good chance they do not know they are affected,” Dr Johnson said, referring to the person carrying the mutated virus. The person could be healthy, but they may also be asymptomatic or experiencing symptoms similar to a bowel condition like Chron’s disease. Dr. Johnson is, however, convinced that the person may travel for work or school, but he could not rule out a chronically ill person who commutes for hospital care. His team cannot say for certain that it is just one person either.
Overall, there are likely only a few thousand people that meet these guidelines, a relatively small group to be sifted through. The longest confirmed COVID-19 case was logged by British doctors in April of last year when they confirmed a person had been infected for 505 days – nearly a year and a half. However, many people have experienced prolonged symptoms after COVID-19 infection – some being diagnosed with the mysterious condition “long COVID.” Dr. Johnson fears that in some of these cases, a person is continuing to feel these symptoms because they are actually just suffering a continued infection.