The race against the virus that causes COVID-19 has taken a new turn: Variables are rapidly escalating, and the longer it takes to vaccinate people, the more likely it is that a variety that may rule out routine tests, treatments, and vaccines.
The coronavirus is becoming more genetically diverse, with health officials saying the high rate of new cases is the main cause. Each new infection allows the virus to circulate and replicate itself, threatening the progress made so far to control the pandemic.
On Friday, the World Health Organization urged more effort to find new changes. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said a new version originally identified in the United Kingdom could prevail in the U.S. by March. Although it will not cause more serious illness, it will lead to more hospitalizations and deaths simply because it spreads much more easily, the CDC said, warning of a “new level of abstract growth.”
“We’re taking it seriously,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s chief infectious disease expert, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“We need to do everything we can now … to get referrals as low as possible,” said Dr. Michael Mina at Harvard University. “The best way to prevent mutant strains from appearing is by slow removal.”
So far, vaccines appear to be still effective, but there are signs that some of the new mutations may weaken tests for the virus and reduce the effectiveness of antibody drugs as medications.
“We are in a race against time” as the virus may “fall on mutation” which makes it more dangerous, said Dr. Pardis Sabeti, an evolutionary biologist at the MIT Broad Institute and Harvard .
Younger people may be less willing to wear masks, soothe crowds and take other steps to avoid infection as the current stress does not seem to make them very ill, but “there the same mute change, it could, ”she said. Sabeti recorded a change in the Ebola virus during the 2014 revolution that made it much worse.
SUGGESTIONS ON THE RISE
It is normal for viruses to find small changes or mutations in their genetic alphabet as they reproduce. Onions that help the virus thrive give it a competitive advantage and thus accumulate other strains.
In March, just a month or two after the coronavirus was discovered in China, a mutation called D614G appeared that made it more likely to spread. It soon became the strongest version in the world.
Now, after months of reasonable calm, “we’ve started to see an amazing evolution” of the virus, biologist Trevor Bedford of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle wrote on Twitter this week went. “Given that we have seen three different concerns since September, it looks like there is more to come.”
One was first recognized in the United Kingdom and quickly became dominant in parts of England. It has now been reported in at least 30 countries, including the United States.
Shortly afterwards, South Africa and Brazil announced new changes, and the main trend in the version marked in Britain turned into a different version “that has been circulating in Ohio. … at least as far back as September, ”said Dr. Dan Jones, a molecular pathologist at Ohio State University who announced that discovery last week.
“The important finding here is that this is unlikely to be related to travel” and instead may reflect the virus getting similar mutations independently as more diseases occur. happens, Jones said.
That also suggests that travel restrictions may be ineffective, Mina said. With so many cases in the United States, “we can breed our own variables that are just as bad or worse” than those in other countries, he said.
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CONVERSATIONS, VACCINE, REFORM RULES
Some laboratory tests suggest that the variables identified in South Africa and Brazil may be as susceptible to antibody drugs or convalescent plasma, antibody-filled blood from COVID-19 survivors – which both help people to fight off the virus.
Government scientists are “actively looking” into that potential, Dr. Janet Woodcock of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration told reporters Thursday. The government is encouraging the development of multi-antibody therapies rather than single-antibody drugs to have more ways to control the virus in case one becomes ineffective, she said.
Conventional vaccines stimulate broad enough immune responses that they should remain effective, many scientists say. Eventually enough genetic modification may be required to reverse the formula of the vaccine, but “it is likely to be in the order of years if we use the vaccine well rather than months,” said the vaccine. Dr. Andrew Pavia of the University of Utah on Thursday on a webcast hosted by the American Infectious Diseases Association.
Health officials are also concerned that if the virus changes enough, people may get COVID-19 a second time. Recurrence is very rare at the moment, but Brazil has already confirmed a case in someone with a new variant who was ill with a previous version several months earlier.
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WHAT TO DO
“We are seeing a lot of changes, viral diversity, because there are so many viruses,” and reducing new diseases is the best way to prevent it, said Dr. Adam Lauring, an infectious disease expert at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Loyce Pace, who heads the nonprofit Global Health Council and is a member of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, said the same complaints have been advising all the time. “still working and they are still important.”
“We still want people to knit up,” she said Thursday on a webcast hosted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“We still need to limit people gathering with people outside their homes. We still need people to wash their hands and be vigilant about these public health practices, especially as these changes unfold. “
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