Just when the world started to expect that vaccination will be launched on Sunday in a better 2021 UK, warned against an extremely infectious and mutant coronavirus strain. Prime Minister Boris Johnson placed London and the nearby cities, essentially cancelling Christmas, under the most extreme lockdown since March.
The science community jumped in to comfort alarmed people as Europe and the rest of the world were waking up to a fresh nightmare and placing travel restrictions in place. Scientists have consistently emphasized that all viruses mutate, including the flu virus mutates in nature, and hence vaccinations need to be modified periodically. Until, the coronavirus mutated, once at the very beginning of the pandemic.
Dr. Ravindra Gupta, a virologist at the University of Cambridge, told the New York Times that this thing transmits, it acquires, it changes all the time.
How many times has a mutated Sars-CoV-2 virus occurred?
To date, scientists have noted two different collections of virus mutations that cause Covid-19, H69/V70 deletion, and D614G, all of which influence the spike proteins that enable the virus to bind and infect the human cell. It is this capacity that vaccines aim at targeting and weakening. Deletion of H69-70 affects the sensitivity of antibodies and has been shown three times so far- in Danish minks, in Britain, and in a patient who has been made even less receptive to plasma convalescent therapy.
The virus was first documented in Wuhan and is said to have mutated several times since then, much of which went unnoticed. The BBC recorded that if the strain that is now infecting individuals is noticeable in a total of 25 mutations similar to the first one that spread in Wuhan, that’s a little over two mutations a month. If the human body becomes more adept at detecting and battling it, by attempting to evade the body’s immune system, the virus is often supposed to strike back.
The first identified mutation accused of occurring in Eastern China in January and eventually spreading across New York City and Europe is the D614G. This unique version was discovered all over the globe within a few months of the pandemic, as it had successfully replaced its ancestor, which had spread from Wuhan.
Scientists have argued that as a result of the 614G mutation, the pandemic spread more quickly, noting that certain countries that were initially successful in suppressing the virus eventually faltered due to the new strain, which spread more rapidly.
In Denmark and later Utah, the H69-70 deletion occurred as the coronavirus spread from humans to minks. There is a potential for the coronavirus to move from humans to animals, and vice versa, minks kept in cramped farms fell victim to the virus and thousands had to be slaughtered to avoid the transmission of the mutant virus to humans.
There is no evidence so far of mutants tampering with the efficacy of the vaccine. Scientists studied the effect on human lung tissues and hamsters as the 614G spread and discovered that it did not change or produce new effects even though it spread further, nor did it cause a colossal increase in deaths. Changing human behavior, which scientists claim influences how the virus spreads more than mutations, is much more important than mutations.
