Melissa Couto Zuber, The Associated Press
Posted on Monday, December 21, 2020 at 4:10 PM EST
New lineages of the virus responsible for COVID-19 have caused travel bans and concerns about increased transmissibility, but experts say it is unclear whether the latest strains are more potent than previous versions.
One strain appears to have dominated infections in the UK over the past month, while another lineage has spread to South Africa. Both countries are experiencing high transmission rates recently and a UK epidemiologist suggested that mutations in the new chain could make the virus 70% more infectious.
Health Canada said Sunday that there is nothing to suggest the new mutations have any effect on the severity of symptoms, antibody response or vaccine effectiveness.
Dr. Gerald Evans, an infectious disease expert at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, agrees, saying we need more evidence before determining possible impacts.
“If it’s explained that yes, it’s more transmissible, then it’s relevant and go, we’ll have to address that,” Evans said.
“What we have is a lot of people are scared because they hear about mutant viruses … I’m frustrated because I need to see (tests).”
Evans said it would make sense to see a new strain appear more frequently in areas where community transmission rates are already “exploding.”
But that could be more due to people’s behavior than a change in the virus itself, he said.
Jason Kindrachuk, a virologist at the University of Manitoba, says the speed at which we see the new strain in the UK seems to suggest that there are more things than relaxed restraints and patterns of behavior.
And while he agrees, more research is needed before he can understand the importance of mutations, this will take time.
“We are in this difficult period where something interesting has come up, but now we have to try to biologically validate what that means,” he said. “And this is not necessarily easy to do in real time as a virus spreads.
“But we have to do these experiments and see: can we show that there is an advantage in these new strains compared to other variants we’ve seen for SARS-CoV-2? And there will be a big mental focus in labs around the world. over the next few weeks ”.
Genomic sequencing of the virus has shown that the British chain has already spread to other countries, but Health Canada said on Sunday that there have been no recorded cases of the new strain here.
The Canadian government began restricting travel from the UK for 72 hours starting Monday in an effort to keep the new strain of the virus out of the country. Several European countries recently announced that they would also close their borders with the UK
Dr. David Williams, chief physician of Ontario, said it is important to ensure that the new strain does not begin to spread in that country, for example by a traveler who does not respect quarantine.
He also said genomic sequencing of the virus in the province is occurring at “light speed.”
“We’re watching it, watching it and watching it to make sure what happens to the strains circulating here,” he said. “So continuous monitoring and laboratory surveillance is essential, which would certainly inform the citizens of Ontario if there is any risk.”
A report on the preliminary genomic characterization of the UK strain says a “different cluster” of the virus has “an unusually large number of genetic changes, particularly in the ear protein.”
This protein is the target of newly developed vaccines, but Art Poon, a researcher on the evolution of the virus at Western University, does not expect the mutations to affect the effectiveness of the vaccine.
“Many of these (mutations) are quite familiar to us and we would have anticipated it in the development of the vaccine,” he said. “But we shouldn’t give the virus so many chances to change either.”
There have been several mutations in SARS-CoV-2 since it began circulating late last year and Poon says part of the reason for this was our inability to suffocate the virus in the first place.
“When you have more viruses circulating, there are more chances of the virus mutating,” he said.
“But as for what we can do about it: all the standard recommendations for reducing transmission: reduce your number of contacts, stay home if you can, wear a mask; these things will help prevent these lineages from appearing.”
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on December 21, 2020.