COVID variants will keep coming, and we have no reason to expect that they’ll be less virulent. ManvBrain reports
Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images It was a reasonable hope: that in time, the novel coronavirus would steadily evolve to become a less dangerous version of itself. We’ve certainly seen this happen with diseases before, such as the 1918 influenza, which killed millions during its first two years but then mutated into a relatively benign form that still circulates today.
When a mutation occurs in the spike protein RNA, it can lead to a different amino acid being substituted into the protein, and as a result the spike protein has a better or worse fit with the cell’s surface protein. Mutations elsewhere in the RNA likewise lead to other kinds of changes. Gupta has watched it happen. As described in a Nature paper last year, he and his colleagues observed a patient suffering from persistent COVID-19. The patient was a man in his 70s who had previously suffered from lymphoma. Over the course of 101 days, the team took viral samples 23 times. They found that the virus was continually undergoing mutations, some of which helped the virus evade the host’s immune defenses.
As each new wave of COVID-19 sweeps the world, infecting and reinfecting millions, most of the people who are affected aren’t likely to serve as breeding grounds for future variants of concern. But among those infected will be a subset of immunocompromised individuals who will provide that fertile environment. It’s like when a wildfire sweeps across a forest: Once the flames have past, most of the trees are just cold, burnt-out husks, but here and there, pockets of embers remain.
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