[imagesource: here]

Most viruses evolve.

It’s part of what makes them so difficult to pin down when formulating a vaccine, and why researchers are working constantly to understand how COVID-19 functions.

The virus that originated in China has spread worldwide, and as it spread, evolved into a new strain that infects human cells more readily than the old one.

This, according to a study published in the journal Cell, and conducted by researchers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Duke University in North Carolina, who partnered with the University of Sheffield’s COVID-19 Genomics UK research group to analyse genome samples.

Over to Science Alert:

The lab-based research suggests this current mutation is more transmissible between people in the real world compared to the previous iteration, but this hasn’t yet been proven.

As we’ve mentioned before, studies need to undergo a rigorous peer-review process before they can be confirmed, and other scientists have to conduct the experiments and replicate the results to confirm them.

At the same time, the findings in this study can’t be dismissed. We have to take them seriously.

[The recent study] analyzed the data of 999 British patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and observed that those with the variant had more viral particles in them, but without this changing the severity of their disease.

​”It seems likely that it’s a fitter virus,” said Erica Ollmann Saphire, who carried out one of the experiments at La Jolla Institute for Immunology.

Business Insider has more from Ollmann Saphire:

…”the mutation is “now the dominant form infecting people.”

“This is now the virus,” Saphire added. The researchers call the new mutation of the virus, which causes a disease known as COVID-19, G614. The previous strain is called D614.

​Lab experiments showed that the variant is three to six times more capable of infecting human cells.

“Our global tracking data show that the G614 variant in Spike has spread faster than D614,” the study said. “We interpret this to mean that the virus is likely to be more infectious.”

Before March, the disease was rare outside of Europe. By the end of March, it had spread worldwide.

“The increase in G614 frequency often continues well after stay-at-home orders are in place and past the subsequent two-week incubation period.”

While there are still important studies that need to be conducted to determine whether or not this will influence drug or vaccine development, researchers believe that the new variant isn’t likely to make individual infections worse.

In other words, we don’t yet know the full scale or impact, so precautions need to be taken.

Masks, handwashing, and physical distancing remain the order of the day.

[sources:sciencealert&bussinessinsider]