A new strain of COVID-19 is fast becoming the most dominant strain in the UK.
This new coronavirus mutation, called “VUI-202012/01”, is thought to be more infectious than COVID-19, but there is no evidence that it is more lethal than COVID-19.
“Some good news. One is that there doesn’t seem to be any effect of these mutations on the effectiveness of the vaccine,” said Dr. David Engelthaler, director of the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGEN) North, in Flagstaff. “It seems that one of the mutations makes the spike protein adapt more easily to cellular receptors. It’s like it’s a key that fits better into a lock. So the virus grows faster, it reproduces. faster and later it can be transmitted can be faster “.
“It may surprise people that there is already more than one coronavirus strain that has mutated many times before,” said Dr. Ross Goldberg, director of the Arizona Medical Association. “Imagine a great LEGO game and I’m going to change some of the LEGO inside. Maybe part of the internal design has changed, but overall, what it is hasn’t changed.”
Dr Goldberg said the current vaccine distributed in the United States was tested against several different strains, and he believes the vaccine will protect against strain VUI-202012/01.
Virus mutations are common and Dr. Engelthaler said the current strain of COVID-19 is a mutation in the original virus that started the pandemic.