Written by Matt Apuzzo, Selam Gebrekidan and Apoorva Mandavilli
Doctors and nurses at a hospital group in South Africa noticed a strange spike in the number of COVID-19 patients in their wards at the end of October. The government had seized the lock, and in the spring more parties had arrived. But the numbers were growing too fast to explain easily, prompting a troubling question.
“Is this a different stream?” one hospital official asked in a group email in early November, citing the possibility that the virus had developed a dangerous mutation.
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That question came up with a high-stop genetic study that started here in Durban on the Indian Ocean, which stopped researchers in Britain and is now taking place around the world. . Scientists have discovered alarming new variants of the virus, leading to the closure of borders, quarantines and lockers, and awakening some of the enthusiasm reached by the vaccines.
Britain in particular has crossed over. Diseases and hospitals have been on the rise in recent weeks since that country discovered its own variant of the virus, which is more contagious than previous forms. According to one estimate, the virus is already responsible for more than 60% of new infections in London and surrounding areas.
The coronavirus has evolved as it has made its way around the world, as is the expectation of any virus. But experts have started with the pace at which major new changes have emerged, adding a new rush to the race between the best defenses in the world – vaccines, locks and social speed – and an aggressive enemy that is change.
The new British pummeling variant has already been discovered in about 45 countries, from Singapore to Oman to Jamaica, but many countries are effectively flying blind, with little awareness of how serious the problem could be. be.
Long before the pandemic appeared, public health officials were calling for a routine genetic screening of events. But despite years of warnings, many countries – including the United States – are doing just a fraction of the genomic studies needed to determine the prevalence of virus mutations.
Denmark, which has invested in genetic research, has found the variability affecting Britain in a number of Danish regions and a recent tightening. The health minister compared it to a storm surge, predicting he would be above other changes by mid-February.
And as countries watch, they experience other changes as well.
With the world going through the spread of the vaccine and the number of cases rising sharply to peaks higher than those seen last spring, scientists are seeing that there is an urgent need to vaccinate so many people before the virus becomes sufficient to remove the vaccines.
“It’s a race against time,” said Marion Koopmans, a Dutch physiologist and member of the World Health Organisation’s working group on coronavirus changes.
The vaccine alone will not be enough to get ahead of the virus. It will take years to protect enough people to limit its evolution. In the meantime, social distance, wearing mascara and hand washing – along with aggressive testing, detection and tracing – may take some time and stop devastating spikes in hospitals and deaths along the way. These strategies could still turn the tide against the virus, experts said.
“We know how we can spread the virus far and wide with our behavior,” said Carl Bergstrom, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. “We have a lot of groups there.”
But because of the pandemic, governments have often been reluctant or unable to support these basic defenses. Many countries have been pursuing discovery and discovery. Wearing mascara is still under political criticism in the United States, despite clear evidence of its effectiveness. A city like Los Angeles has been caught with a spike in matters related to the Christmas festivals, and national public health officials are pushing for attacks elsewhere, led by people who have heeded advice and who traveled through the holidays.
Much remains unknown about the new changes or even how many are growing around the world. Scientists are racing to get enough of the virus, but only a few countries have the will or the will to do so.
The rapid spread of variables is a reminder of the failures and false messages in major virus-infected countries. Just as China failed to stop travelers from spreading the virus before the Lunar New Year last year, Britain failed to move quickly before the new variant spread. Britain lowered its guard over the holidays, despite a rise in issues now known to be linked to change. And just as China became an early pariah, Britain now has the unfortunate distinction of Plague Island.
The spread of Britain’s variable lashing has left some countries vulnerable at a time when they looked close to scientific recovery. Case in point: Israel. The country, which had launched a highly successful vaccine release, tightened its lockout on Friday after discovering cases of the opposite. Approximately 8,000 new diseases have been detected daily in the last few days, and the rate of spread in ultra-vertical communities has skyrocketed.