UK COVID variant hunters warn undetected mutations could be widespread in the US

London – British scientists say fast-spreading variant of COVID-19 first discovered in southern England is evolving in a way that could make it exist vaccines less effective against it. The United Kingdom has closely followed the changes in the Corona virus for months, a world leader in tracking changes in the virus’s genetic code.

Authorities in England are trying to test everyone over 16 in many neighborhoods where a few cases of another troubling variant – the first detected in South Africa – have been discovered. But even as Britain rushes to find and stop this highly infectious strain, scientists have found that the British variant appears to be mutating in a way that mimics the South African variant.

The discovery raised concerns about the continued evolution of the virus, which some evidence suggests could lead to vaccine resistance currently being deployed around the world.

“The virus, over time, gets better,” said Sharon Peacock, who heads a national network of British scientists who are following transformations more closely than anywhere else in the world, told CBS News correspondent Roxana Saberi .

For the coronavirus, says Peacock, “it’s a matter of natural selection. It’s the survival of the fittest.”

She tells CBS News that her COVID-19 Genomics UK team searches labs across Britain every day for any new mutations, which “really give us a barcode for the virus.”

This hunt relies on both robots and human researchers examining thousands of samples of COVID-19, mapping mutations in the genetic code of the virus.

In November, they spotted something alarming: mutations, many of them in the virus’s spike protein, which allowed it to attach more tightly to cells, which made it much more contagious.

While 10 people infected with the old variants of the virus could transmit it to 13 others, 10 people with the new variant discovered in Kent, south-east London, could infect around 20.

“It’s really important,” Peacock says, “because more people can get sick and therefore more people are at risk of dying simply from the burden of the disease.”

Quickly dubbed the ‘British variant’, the new variety has since swept across the world, prompting the United States and many other countries to tighten their travel restrictions. Germany and Austria are now requiring anyone who ventures into most public places to wear medical grade masks, not just cloth masks, and the UK has imposed a third nationwide lockdown.

British scientists say that as COVID-19 continues to mutate, the rest of the world also needs to do more genetic sequencing – and the The United States has some catching up to do. Currently, less than 1% of coronavirus samples in the US are sequenced, compared to around 10% in the UK, which means many dangerous mutations can be missed.

Peacock says it’s “very likely” that COVID-19 variants in the United States are more prevalent than is currently known, “and I think sequencing will be vital in detecting that.”

Ravi Gupta, professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge, told CBS News vaccines will likely need to be redesigned by the end of this year to accommodate the new mutations. A senior researcher at pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca said on Wednesday that the work would be done “as quickly as possible.”

“We are working very hard and we are already talking not only about the variants that we have to do in the laboratories, but also about the clinical studies that we have to carry out,” Mene Pangalos said during a press briefing. “We really want to try to do something by the fall, so this year.”