COVID is Mutating in London

[David Morris]

Happy New Year
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55388846

Why is this variant causing concern?

Three things are coming together that mean it is attracting attention:

   - It is rapidly replacing other versions of the virus
   - It has mutations that affect part of the virus likely to be important
   - Some of those mutations have already been shown in the lab to increase
   the ability of the virus to infect cells

All of these come together to build a case for a virus that can spread more
easily.
Does it make the infection more deadly?

There is no evidence to suggest that it does, although this will need to be
monitored.

However, just increasing transmission would be enough to cause problems for
hospitals.

If the new variant means more people are infected more quickly, that would
in turn lead to more people needing hospital treatment.
Will the vaccines work against the new variant?

Almost certainly yes, or at least for now.

All three leading vaccines develop an immune response against the existing
spike, which is why the question comes up.

Vaccines train the immune system to attack several different parts of the
virus, so even though part of the spike has mutated, the vaccines should
still work.

"But if we let it add more mutations, then you start worrying," said Prof
Gupta.

"This virus is potentially on a pathway for vaccine escape, it has taken
the first couple of steps towards that."

Vaccine escape happens when the virus changes so it dodges the full effect
of the vaccine and continues to infect people.

This may be the most concerning element of what is happening with the virus.

This variant is just the latest to show the virus is continuing to adapt as
it infects more and more of us.

A presentation by Prof David Robertson, from the University of Glasgow on
Friday, concluded: "The virus will probably be able to generate vaccine
escape mutants
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3CT9N89L-c&feature=youtu.be>."

That would put us in a position similar to flu, where the vaccines need to
be regularly updated. Fortunately the vaccines we have are very easy to
tweak.