Mutation of COVID-19: How Will It Affect the Pandemic?
There are now at least six strains of COVID-19 in our world. What does that exactly mean? In the field of biology, a strain is a genetic variant of its parent. Natural selection is at play here: these strains are due to the pressures of evolution that shapes all living organisms and viruses. These pressures, for the most part, pertain to environmental factors such as UV light. In addition to that are the mistakes in genetic replication that are not corrected over time—this causes a mutation in the genome of the daughter cell.
COVID-19 has mutated over time as it replicates across the world. There are several ways COVID-19 can mutate. There may be a copying mistake when the virus replicates within the host’s body. Additionally, those that survive the host’s immune response are those that live on and replicate—that is the aforementioned phenomenon of natural selection. What exactly are the six strains of COVID-19? The University of Bologna conducted research on “48,635 coronavirus genomes” (Università di Bologna) to determine the variability of the virus at a global scale. The parent L strain originates from Wuhan, China. In the start of 2020, the S strain came to be. In the middle of January, 2020, the V and G strains appeared—the G strain had become the most common strain globally, which then “mutated into strains GR and GH at the end of February 2020” (Università di Bologna). The GR and GH strains have since become “by far the most widespread, representing 74% of all gene sequences we analysed," explains researcher Federico Giorgi.
Despite the number of COVID-19 strains, the differences between their genetics are low. Giorgi states that "the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is presumably already optimized to affect human beings, and this explains its low evolutionary change.” Essentially, this would mean that all of the strains affect the human body in similar ways, such that there isn't a need for different medical solutions to treat them. It has been said, however, that the probability of newer strains may be able to infect people easier, but there is no evidence that they can cause a more severe disease.
However, one must not ignore the fact that COVID-19 will continuously mutate throughout time. It is impossible to predict the behavioural changes of COVID-19 as it mutates, which means that scientists have to continuously research and analyse as many COVID-19 genomes as possible to be able to understand its effects for the global population. It takes a global effort in order to do so: genomes from every country has to be shared amongst each other to see the bigger picture of COVID-19. Dr. Bette Korber from the Los Alamos National Laboratory has explained that “it is possible to track SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) evolution globally because researchers worldwide are rapidly making their viral sequence data available through the GISAID viral sequence database. Currently tens of thousands of sequences are available through this project, and this enabled us to identify the emergence of a variant that has rapidly become the globally dominant form” (University of Sheffield).
References:
Università di Bologna. “The Six Strains of SARS-CoV-2.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 3 Aug. 2020, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200803105246.htm.
University of Sheffield. “New, More Infectious Strain of COVID-19 Now Dominates Global Cases of Virus: Study.” Medical Xpress - Medical Research Advances and Health News, Medical Xpress, 2 July 2020, medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-infectious-strain-covid-dominates-global.html.
