Reports from Britain and South Africa on new coronavirus strains that appear to be spreading more easily are alarming, but virus experts say it is unclear whether this is the case or whether they raise concerns about vaccines or cause more disease. serious.
Viruses evolve naturally as they move through the population, some more than others. It’s one of the reasons we need a new flu shot every year.
New variants or strains of the virus caused by COVID-19 have been seen almost since it was first detected in China almost a year ago.
On Saturday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced new restrictions due to the new strain. Several countries in the European Union and Canada banned or limited some flights from the UK in an attempt to limit any differences.
This is what is known about the situation.
WHAT IS THE CONCERN ABOUT THE RECENT ROPE FOUND IN ENGLAND?
Health experts in the UK and US said the strain appears to be more easily infected than others, but there is still no evidence that it is more deadly.
Patrick Vallance, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, said the strain “is moving fast and is becoming the dominant variant”, causing more than 60% of infections in London in December.
The strain is also worrisome because it has many mutations (almost two dozen) and some are found in the spiked protein that the virus uses to attach and infect cells. This tip is the current goal of vaccines.
“I’m sure this worries me,” but it’s too early to know how important it will ultimately be, said Dr. Ravi Gupta, who studies viruses at Cambridge University in England. He and other researchers published a report of it on a website that scientists use to quickly share developments, but the paper has not been formally reviewed or published in a journal.
HOW ARE THESE NEW THINGS GIVEN?
Viruses usually acquire small one- or two-letter changes in their genetic alphabet only through normal evolution. A slightly modified strain may become the most common in a country or region just because that is the strain that was first taken over there or because the “super spreader” events helped consolidate it.
A bigger concern is when a virus mutates by changing the proteins on its surface to help it escape from drugs or the immune system.
“Emerging evidence” suggests it may be starting to happen with the new coronavirus, wrote on Twitter Trevor Bedford, a biologist and genetics expert at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. “We have now seen the emergence and spread of various variants” that suggest this, and some show resistance to antibody treatments, he noted.
WHAT OTHER ROPES HAVE COME OUT?
In April, researchers in Sweden found a virus with two genetic changes that appeared to make it about twice as infectious, Gupta said. He said nearly 6,000 cases were reported worldwide, mainly in Denmark and England.
Several variations of this strain have now appeared. Some were reported in people who obtained them from mink farms in Denmark. A new South African strain has the two previous changes in addition to others.
The one in the UK has the two changes and more, including eight in the tip protein, Gupta said. It is called “investigated variant” because its importance is not yet known.
The strain was identified in the south-east of England in September and has been circulating in the area ever since, a World Health Organization official told the BBC on Sunday.
WILL PEOPLE WHO HAVE COVID-19 IN AN OLD WAY BE ABLE TO GET THE NEW ONE? WILL IT SUPPLY VACCINES?
Probably not, former U.S. Food and Drug Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“It’s unlikely,” Gupta agreed.
President-elect Joe Biden’s general surgeon candidate Vivek Murthy told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that “there is no reason to believe that the vaccines that have been developed will not be effective against this.” virus “.
Several experts noted that vaccines produce broad responses by the immune system, beyond those of the ear protein.
The chance that the new strains will be resistant to existing vaccines is low, but it is not “non-existent,” Dr. Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific advisor to the U.S. government’s vaccine distribution effort, in the state of CNN Union
“So far, I think there hasn’t been any variant that was resilient,” he said. “I think this particular variant in the UK is very unlikely to have escaped vaccine immunity.”
Bedford agreed.
“I don’t care,” because it would probably take a lot of changes in the genetic code to undermine a vaccine, not just one or two mutations, Bedford wrote on Twitter. But vaccines may need to be adjusted over time as changes accumulate and changes should be monitored more closely, he wrote.
Murthy said the new strain doesn’t change public health tips for wearing masks, washing hands and keeping social distance.
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Associated Press writers John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, Sylvia Hui in London, and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to the communication.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.