3 New Mutated Strains of COVID-19 Confirmed in South Korea

This is exactly what we need: more Covid-19 cousins to come join the party.

If you can’t tell, the first sentence was sarcastic and we really do not need mutated strains of Covid-19.

But as we can tell from the past few months, Covid-19 doesn’t really care about what we want or need.

And yesterday, it was reported that new mutated strains were discovered in South Korea, the country which is now fighting its second wave of outbreak.

3 New Mutated Strains of COVID-19 Confirmed in South Korea

On 10 Aug 2020, it was reported that South Korea has detected 3 new mutated strains of Covid-19.

All three came from imported cases: two from Pakistan and one from Uzbekistan.

The Korea Disease Center (KDC) had made a comparison and found that the three Covid-19 strains are different from the GISAID database, which has records of 78,810 viral genome sequences

What Does That Mean?

There are more to elaborate but here’s what it means for non-doctors and scientists like you and me.

Testing regimes do not have to change as the KDC reported that our current swab test can still detect the presence of the virus.

Right now, KDC is trying to investigate the degree of infectivity (the ability of the particular strain to establish an infection) of the new strain.

Also, this shows that imported cases have a chance to introduce new types of mutation into an already volatile situation, which is why every country is careful about who they let into their country.

This also means that your dreams of travelling to Bangkok and South Korea for a month-long holiday have to be pushed back, at least until 2024 or a new vaccine is found.

Not The Only Country To Have Mutated Strains

According to CTGN, Japan has been experiencing mutated strains of Covid-19 in recent months too.

In Mar 2020, the country was mainly combating the variant of a European strain of Covid-19.

They managed to combat it successfully in May 2020.

However, in mid-June, Covid-19 cases started rising again.

It was found that the main bulk of the infections this time was a mutation of the original Covid-19 strain that previously terrorised the country, with a new genetic sequence.

The National Institute of Infectious Diseases took samples from about 3,700 patients in Japan and found evidence to suggest that the coronavirus might have been transmitting quietly among younger asymptomatic cases.

As of the time of writing, Japan has reported a total of 49,608 Covid-19 cases with 1,052 deaths.