So far, none of the new variants appears to make people sicker or cause more death.
Generally, it doesn t make sense for a virus to become deadlier because viruses that kill their hosts too quickly can t continue reproducing.
Middle East Respiratory Virus, for instance, which is similar to SARS-CoV-2, kills about one-third of its victims. But after a few scares when it first appeared in 2012-2013, it hasn t spread much beyond Saudi Arabia, where it was first seen.
Virologists were relieved COVID-19 wasn t as deadly but from the start its rapid rate of spread made it dangerous. And the new
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Experts: Vaccines likely to be effective against new COVID-19 variants
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Experts say that currently approved COVID-19 vaccines, which are being distributed in the United States and around the world, are likely to remain effective as new strains of the coronavirus emerge. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
Everyone has heard the scary reports about the new, more infectious coronavirus variants that are circulating in countries around the world, but scientists aren t pushing the panic button at this point.
Why? Because the new COVID-19 vaccines should still work on these viral interlopers.
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Luckily, the new variants still rely on the coronavirus spike protein to infect cells, and the two COVID vaccines now on the U.S. market specifically target the spike protein to prevent transmission, explained Dr. Kathryn Edwards, scientific director of the Vanderbilt University Vaccine Research Program in Nashville.
New strains of COVID swiftly moving through the US need careful watch, scientists say Karen Weintraub and Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
How viruses like COVID-19 mutate, and how they impact vaccine development
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Viruses live – if you can call it that – to replicate themselves. They hijack cells, including our own, and use them to make copies of themselves.
But every time a virus like the one that causes COVID-19 copies itself, as it does millions of times inside each infected person, mistakes can happen. Instead of perfectly copying its 29,811 bases, the four-letter alphabet used to describe its genetic code, a wrong letter sneaks in.