COVID-19 variants have been discovered in Mendocino County. Testing samples from February were sent to a state lab for processing as normal and were randomly sampled for variant testing. Mendocino County Public Health was alerted on March 24th that a number of samples tested positive for 4 different variants of the COVID-19 virus: two west coast variants and 2 U.S. variants. County Health Officer Dr. Andy Coren said the discovery should be of significant concern for Mendocino County residents. The West Coast variants have been shown to have a 20% higher transmission rate and are also somewhat more resistant to antibody therapies. Cohen says it’s important to abide by COVID-19 precautions to avoid another surge.