"COVID-19 Variant with Stronger Infectivity Spreading in the US and Europe"

More Contagious and Resilient Than Early Virus Strains from China
If It Continues to Spread in Summer, Current Vaccines in Development May Be Less Effective

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunwoo Lee] Since February, the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), which rapidly spread in the United States and Europe, has been identified as a mutated variant of the virus that originally spread in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Research shows that this variant is much more contagious than the virus that initially spread in Wuhan.

According to CNBC on the 5th (local time), researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States recently published a study on the international biological academic paper repository BioRxiv, revealing that the COVID-19 virus that spread to Europe, the United States, Canada, and other regions since early February is a new variant with stronger infectivity than the virus initially spread in Wuhan, China. This virus has become the most dominant COVID-19 virus worldwide, including in the United States, since the end of March.

The research team, in collaboration with scientists from Duke University in the United States and the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, analyzed thousands of COVID-19 virus genetic sequences collected from the World Health Organization (WHO) International Influenza Data Sharing Initiative (GISAID) and discovered 14 mutations. These mutations affect the 'spike protein,' which functions when the virus enters the host, leading to the assumption that the variant virus has become more contagious.

The researchers warned that the variant COVID-19 virus can survive better in environments with rising temperatures and higher humidity compared to the original virus. As a result, if the virus continues to mutate during the summer, the COVID-19 vaccines expected to be released within the year may not be fully effective. Currently, about 100 vaccines under development worldwide are all based on the viral genetic sequences extracted by Chinese health authorities during the early outbreak.