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The coronavirus variant first identified in the UK is now spreading widely in the United States and experts believe it could be the dominant form of the virus by March. There is some evidence that this leads to more viruses in the nose, which may explain why it is more transmissible.
Although there are now millions of people vaccinated, we still don’t know how well the virus is replicating in them or if it is weak enough to prevent the spread to other people.
Experts also express concerns about vaccine resistance or vaccine leak. This is a very rare case when a variant of the pathogen is not affected by the vaccine and can then infect and cause disease in the person.
Most of the evidence suggests this may not be happening yet, although some data from South Africa suggests that the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine is less effective against the variant there. “Right now, it’s very difficult to look at the lab data and predict what’s going to happen in humans,” writes viral immunologist Sarah L. Caddy in The conversation. “First, we don’t know the minimum number or ‘titer’ of effective antibodies needed to protect someone from the virus.”
A patient’s story can help scientists better understand what the virus does in our bodies and how it mutates. A 45-year-old man had an infection that lasted for five months in 2020. Unlike others who can transmit the virus and have persistent symptoms, this patient had an active virus in his body throughout this period, reports NPR.
Scientists can examine and compare samples taken periodically from the patient. If the virus was mutating in the patient’s body, then he should be able to see it.
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And in this case, they did. “I was shocked,” says Jonathan Li of Harvard Medical School, according to NPR. “When I saw the virus sequences, I knew we were dealing with something completely different and potentially very important.”
The patient had a weakened immune system, which experts say is why the virus persisted. An article in the New England Journal of Medicine chronicled their illness and the analyzes that resulted from the study of their samples. The length of time the virus was able to survive in the patient’s body may have been a factor that allowed him to mutate as much as he did.
However, mutations still go nowhere. It is a normal process that all viruses go through without intention. So more mutations doesn’t necessarily mean that a deadlier, more transmissible, or significantly different virus will surface. And that could be good for vaccines. “On a more reassuring note, scientists broadly agree that it is highly unlikely that a few viral mutations will render current COVID vaccines useless,” writes Caddy. “However, mutations can make these vaccines less effective overall.”
Experts hope vaccines can be adapted to help cope with variants, especially with messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines which can be easily modified and updated. Research groups and vaccine developers are already working on this issue, but newer versions may take time to release.
For up-to-date information on COVID-19, visit the websites of the Centers for Disaster Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. To know the overall number of updated cases, see this page maintained by Johns Hopkins University or the COVID monitoring project.
You can follow Chia-Yi Hou on Twitter.
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