Photographer: Betty Laura Zapata / Bloomberg
Photographer: Betty Laura Zapata / Bloomberg
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Health officials in the UK sounded the alarm over a variant of the coronavirus that is spreading rapidly throughout London and the south-east of England.
The Covid-19 variant has nearly two dozen mutations that can affect coronavirus-produced proteins, Patrick Vallance, the UK’s leading scientific adviser, said on Saturday. It is fast becoming the dominant strain in the capital and the southeast, he said.
Scientists have found mutations in areas of the genome “that are known to be associated with how the virus binds to cells and enters cells,” Vallance said at a news conference alongside the prime minister Boris Johnson. The changes “cause concern about the appearance of the virus.”
Johnson said there is no evidence that the variant is more lethal or causes more serious disease than previous strains, nor is there any evidence that it is less susceptible to Covid-19 vaccines being deployed, although the data they are still in the process of being reviewed.
Still, it appears to be up to 70% more transmissible and could increase the R value, the number of people infected by a person with the virus, by 0.4, Johnson said.
Reduce transmission
Viruses are usually genetically unstable and their constant mutations give them opportunities to infect new organisms, as the coronavirus did last year when it probably jumped from animals to humans. Scientists expressed concern that the growing spread of the pathogen, which has already infected more than 75 million people worldwide, could give it a chance to change to a more lethal form.
“We need to reduce transmission to prevent hospitalizations and deaths,” infectious disease specialist Jeremy Farrar and director of Wellcome, the UK’s research foundation, said on Twitter. “We also need to reduce transmission to reduce the chance of the virus evolving and escape control.”
Changes in viruses can drive in different directions, slowing transmission and virulence, but also moving in a more severe direction, he wrote. It was too early to know if it is becoming more and more dangerous, he added. While many aspects of the pandemic have been predictable since the beginning of the year, “we may be entering a less predictable phase.”
Johnson launched a new round of restrictions on Saturday, as the UK reported 27,052 new cases, bringing the total to more than 2 million. The country reached 1 million cases on October 31.
The Prime Minister imposed a closure on London and large parts of the south-east of England. He canceled plans to ease pandemic restrictions for five days over the holidays and banned mixing of homes in London and the South East, while restricting socialization only on Christmas Day to the rest of England.
Mink Farms
SARS-CoV-2 generally mutates at a slower rate than some other viruses because it has an autocorrection mechanism that keeps its genetic sequence relatively stable. But other variants of the coronavirus have been detected, including one in minks, susceptible to the virus, which was feared to be highly transmissible and reported to the World Health Organization.
Millions of farmed minks were killed, although on November 20 the WHO said the most worrying strain related to animals no longer circulates through humans.
Viral mutations are sometimes a cause for concern. Nearly 20 years ago, scientists closely tracked mutations in a deadly strain of bird flu that killed or killed millions of birds worldwide, and was highly dangerous in the few infected people. The flu virus eventually disappeared without having the ability to spread easily from one person to another.
The coronavirus is already highly contagious. In the absence of virus control measures, each infected person frequently infects other people. It can spread from both the nose and mouth of infected people into tiny droplets and particles called aerosols.
Very contagious
Under certain conditions, such as those in meat packaging plants, the virus is known to spread among workers separated by more than 20 feet. Another danger is that the virus spreads to people who have no symptoms and do not realize they are infected.
If the mutations caused the virus to become more lethal, this could create even more concern. To date, more than 1.6 million people worldwide have died, and the elderly and people with chronic illnesses have been at the highest risk of severe symptoms and death.
Another concern is that the mutation can lead to a virus capable of evading the immune response created by the vaccines that are now being deployed.
“There are theoretical reasons to suspect that some of the changes may alter part of the immune response, but nothing has been seen to suggest that this is the case,” Vallance said.