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Does it spread more easily? Make people sicker? Does it mean that treatments and vaccines won’t work?
Questions are multiplying as fast as new strains of the coronavirus, especially the one now traversing England.
Scientists say there is cause for concern, but the new strains shouldn’t cause alarm.
“There is no evidence that there is an increase in severity” of Covid-19 from the latest strain, said World Health Organization (WHO) emergency chief Dr. Michael Ryan.
“We don’t want to overreact,” the US government’s leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told CNN.
Concern has been mounting since Saturday last week, when the British prime minister said that a new strain, or variant, of the coronavirus seemed to spread more easily than previous ones and was moving rapidly through England.
Dozens of countries banned flights from the UK and southern England was subjected to strict blockade measures.
Here are some questions and answers about what is known about the virus so far.
Where does this new strain come from?
New variants have been observed almost since the virus was first detected in China almost a year ago.
Viruses often mutate or develop small changes as they reproduce and move through a population, something “that is natural and expected,” the WHO said in a statement.
“Most mutations are trivial. It’s the change of one or two letters in the genetic alphabet that doesn’t make much of a difference in the ability to cause disease, ”said Dr. Philip Landrigan, a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientist who runs a program. Global Health Center in Boston. College.
A more worrisome situation is when a virus mutates by changing the proteins on its surface to help it escape drugs or the immune system, or if it acquires a large number of changes that make it very different from previous versions.
How does a strain become dominant?
That can happen if a strain is a “founder” strain – the first to take hold and start spreading in an area, or because “super spread” events helped it become established.
It can also happen if a mutation gives a new variant an advantage, such as helping it spread more easily than other strains that are circulating, as may be the case in Britain.
“It is more contagious than the original strain,” Landrigan said. “The reason it is becoming the dominant strain in England is because it outperforms the other strains and moves faster and infects more people, so it wins the race.”
Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientific adviser for the US government’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign, said scientists are still working to confirm whether the strain in England spreads more easily.
He said it’s also possible that the “seeding” of hidden cases “happened in the shadows” before scientists started looking for it.
The strain was first detected in September, WHO officials said.
What is worrisome about it?
It has many mutations, almost two dozen, and eight are in the spike protein that the virus uses to bind and infect cells. The spike is the target of vaccines and antibodies.
Dr Ravi Gupta, a virus expert at the University of Cambridge in England, said that model studies suggest that it may be up to twice as infectious as the strain that has been most common in England so far.
He and other researchers published a report about it on a website that scientists use to quickly share developments, but it has not been formally reviewed or published in a journal.
Does it make people sicker or more likely to die?
“There is no indication that either is true, but clearly those are two issues that we have to watch out for,” Landrigan said.
As more patients become infected with the new strain, “they will know very soon if the new strain makes people sicker.”
A WHO outbreak expert, Maria Van Kerkhove, said Monday that “the information we have so far is that there is no change” in the type of disease or its severity due to the new strain.
What do mutations mean for treatments?
A couple of cases in England raise concerns that mutations in some of the new emerging strains could damage the potency of drugs that deliver antibodies to prevent the virus from infecting cells.
“Studies on the antibody response are ongoing. We expect results in the coming days and weeks, ”said Van Kerkhove.
One drug maker, Eli Lilly, said tests in his lab using strains containing the most worrisome mutation suggest his drug remains fully active.
What about vaccines?
Slaoui said the presumption is that current vaccines would still be effective against the variant, but that scientists are working to confirm this.
“My expectation is that this will not be a problem,” he said.
UK officials have said they “don’t think there is an impact on vaccines,” Van Kerkhove said.
Vaccines induce broad immune system responses in addition to prompting the immune system to produce antibodies against the virus, so they are expected to continue to work, several scientists said.
Can travel restrictions do anything?
Landrigan thinks they can.
“If the new strain is more contagious than the original strain, then it is very, very sensible to restrict travel,” he said. “It will slow things down. As long as you can break the chain of transmission, you can slow down the virus. “
CNN quoted Fauci as saying that it was not criticizing other countries for suspending travel to England, but that it would not recommend that the United States take that step.
The presence or extent of the new strain in the United States is unknown at this time.
What can I do to reduce my risk?
Follow the advice to wear a mask, wash your hands frequently, maintain social distance and avoid crowds, say public health experts.
“The bottom line is that we have to suppress transmission” of all virus strains that can cause Covid-19, said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“The more we allow it to spread, the more mutations will occur.”
