The United Kingdom, Brazil, India… these places are less reminiscent of distant romantic getaways these days, and more with the—gasp—prospect of getting a more severe variant of the coronavirus.
Well, at least we are only counting variants that matter. There won’t be enough countries in the world otherwise to fit the different variants; the virus that causes COVID-19 has already mutated more than 6,600 times in total, according to The Straits Times.
Over 6,600 Mutations Detected Since Dec 2019
Viruses mutate whenever a mistake is made in their replication processes, and the RNA material they contain becomes slightly different.
The COVID-19 virus, which is properly called the SARS-CoV-2, is especially prone to mutations given its large cache of RNA material, and the difficulty to replicate everything accurately.
And if the mutation increases the virus’ ability to survive (and to infect others), the mutated virus will become more prevalent in a process akin to natural selection.
The D614G mutation, first detected in February last year, has in fact completely replaced the original strain from Wuhan, and is now found in every variant of the virus.
Fortunately, most mutations are simply mistakes without any impact on the virus’ transmissibility or its severity. 6,600 mutations have already occurred, which is equivalent to one unique mutation every two hours.
Whoever’s playing Plague Inc. sure had a lot of DNA points to spare.
Those variants that do become more dangerous typically have an assortment of mutations that together pose a greater level of risk, and the “double mutant” monikers given to some variants merely refer to the more significant mutations
To be a “variant of concern” (VOC) designated by the World Health Organisation (WHO), a virus has to fulfill one or more of four conditions: easier transmission, causing more severe illnesses, reducing the effectiveness of antibodies, or impeding treatment, vaccination, or diagnosis.
So far, only three variations have been considered as VOCs, and several more that are designated “variants of interest”, which share some characteristics of VOCs, but require further evidence to confirm their potency.
The two variants currently behind the catastrophic Indian outbreak (B16171 and B16172), for example, remain variants of interest because the WHO cannot yet ascertain if it is the potency of the variants or poor infrastructure and policy making that is responsible.
When interviewed, Professor Ooi Eng Eong of the Duke-NUS Medical School believed that vaccines remain effective against new variants, explaining that vaccines can “activate a suite of immune responses” that would not be affected even if the spike protein of the virus mutates.
However, others, such as Associate Professor Hsu Liyang of the National University of Singapore (NUS), cautioned that we cannot rule out the possibility of a future variant significantly compromising the protection afforded by vaccines.
Moral of the story: get vaccinated before the virus infects more people and gets more chances to mutate.
Feature Image: Andrii Vodolazhskyi / Shutterstock.com
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