C
Chris Smith
Guest
- Health officials have announced a new coronavirus mutation that has been discovered in the UK, which seems to be spreading quickly in some parts of England.
- It’s unclear whether the mutation has altered the behavior of the virus in any way.
- Health Secretary Matt Hancock said there’s “nothing to suggest” the mutation causes worse COVID-19 or that vaccines might not work against it. But more research will be required to understand the severity of the mutation.
Infectious pathogens like the novel coronavirus and the flu are constantly evolving, adapting themselves to their environments. Mutations are part of the natural evolution of a virus, and SARS-CoV-2 is not an exception to that rule. The more severely a virus mutates, the less effective vaccination campaigns might be. This is why the flu shot won’t always work and why people might need a new vaccine each year.
The coronavirus has been a lot more stable when it comes to vaccine efforts so far. Earlier this week, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that their vaccine is effective against at least 19 versions of the virus. Geneticists have been keeping track of these SARS-CoV-2 mutations from the moment the novel coronavirus genome was released in early 2020. Since then, there’s been only one significant mutation along the way, as well as several scares.
The good news is that all the current vaccine candidates, including those successful in Phase 3 trials, have been tested against the dominant mutation that appeared early in the pandemic. But just as vaccinations have started in the UK and US, researchers from Britain report a new coronavirus strain that’s spreading rapidly in some regions of the country.
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A new coronavirus mutation was discovered that’s spreading rapidly originally appeared on BGR.com on Tue, 15 Dec 2020 at 11:57:36 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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