Three mutant COVID strains overwhelm world leading to vaccine fears
An explosion of new COVID-19 strains is shaking the world. Now, even as hopes surge amid mass vaccine rollouts, we’re in a race against time before the virus finds a way to fight back.
It’s no surprise.
But the early appearance of mutated versions of the virus means governments globally will have to fast-track a new “arms race” to keep on top of the pandemic.
“World leaders are rattled as several new variants have taken hold,” says Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) health policy analysts Anna McCaffrey and Stephen Morrison. “They confer a new competitive edge to the virus and threaten to change the pandemic game fundamentally, at the very moment when many countries are facing runaway outbreaks and worsening economic and social crises.”
Suddenly, it seems new strains are popping up everywhere: United Kingdom, South Africa, Brazil, and now the United States.
“The fear is that those advantaged strains may become dominant, making outbreaks far more difficult and costly to control,” CSIS warns.
We still don’t know much about COVID-19.
Experience has taught us it is remarkably infectious. It has demonstrated various, unexpected ways of attacking our immune systems.
Science is slowly figuring out how, but the virus is a moving target.
Breakthroughs are made, circulated, tested and turned into action – such as vaccines. But the virus is changing even as these processes unfold.
“We will see viruses mutate to evade antibody responses. We may see them become better adapted as the virus adjusts to its new host. This is what viruses can do,” says UNSW Kirby Institute associate professor in immunovirology Stuart Turville.
REFINED COVID
“The rapid appearance of these changes is faster than expected. It’s the consequence of a biological event. But we do not know what that event or collection of events that would be,” Associate Professor Turville says.
Three mutations in particular have scientists concerned.
Variant B.1.1.7, initially identified in the UK, has optimised itself to quickly and efficiently infect human cells. It’s some 50 per cent better at infecting new subjects than the original COVID-19 and is behind the recent explosion of hospitalisations within the UK.
https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/health/three-mutant-covid-strains-overwhelm-world-leading-to-vaccine-fears/news-story/45fd5fb6be75a0b3c5f2b39e14ef0ec8
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