New Coronavirus Mutation Spreads Better Among The Young

<Just before Christmas you probably heard about new mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 illness. According to the original news, this new “British variant” was 70 % better at spreading. Now, we finally have more information coming from Imperial College London./i>

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I should start by saying that new mutations of viruses aren’t anything unusual and they happened almost all the time. The variant B.1.1.7 also called Variant of Concern 202012/01 (VOC) was mostly publicized because of its higher infection rate.

The British government reacted to it by tightened their anti-covid measures and many countries closed their borders to those traveling from the United Kingdom. Yet, this mutation of the coronavirus has been detected in several European countries since.

Researching The New Mutation

The new mutation obviously interests scientists that started their research. The first to publish their results was a team from Imperial College London.

To simplify their findings: The new mutation of the virus spreads faster and more often afflicts younger people. The available evidence suggests a move in the age structure of reported cases with a higher percentage of people younger than 20 years being infected. The increased numbers were mostly recorded in high-schoolers but that could also be caused by the fact that high schools were opened when the study was created.

BBC News informed that the new mutation increases the reproduction number (the number that tells us how many people will be infected by a single person) by 0.4 to 0.7. Professor Axel Gandy says that the differences among different types of viruses are quite extreme.

The study suggests that the infection rate of the new mutation during the lockdown in November tripled while the old version was reduced by one third. This suggests that unless we start doing something differently the new mutation will continue to spread and cause more infections, more hospitalizations, and more deaths.

What is good news is the fact that the new research doesn’t contradict previous research that shows the new mutation doesn’t have a higher mortality rate and current vaccinations should be effective as well.

The experts presume that the new mutation was created in the United Kingdom sometime at the end of summer or early autumn 2020. Since then, the situation in the United Kingdom has dramatically worsened and the numbers of newly infected are repeatedly going over 50.000 people in recent days.

Sources:

• https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/covid-19/report-42-sars-cov-2-variant/
• https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55507012

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