A new strain of the coronavirus in the United Kingdom has caused alarm, led Prime Minister Boris Johnson to impose the country’s strictest lockdown since March, and triggered travel bans in other European nations.
Public health experts believe this new mutated form of the virus is more transmissible than prior versions. But that has not yet been confirmed, and there’s no evidence that this iteration of Covid-19 is deadlier than the last.
Here’s what we know, and what we don’t.
The virus mutated in the U.K. Could that happen here?
Sure. Viruses mutate all the time. That’s why you get a different flu shot each year. What matters is how the virus mutates, and what the effect of those mutations are on how the virus acts in the body. What’s notable about this latest strain is that it’s actually about 20 different mutations — an usually high number. And it might be more easily transmitted.
How much more infectious is this variant?
Johnson, the U.K. prime minister, has said that this variant may have increased the virus’ transmissibility by 70%. But scientists are still investigating.
“There are too many unknowns to say something like that,” Christian Drosten, a virologist at Charité University Hospital in Berlin, told Scientific American about Johnson’s assertion.
There is, however, also a concern this variant could spread more easily to children, who have been considered less likely to catch and pass along the virus than teens and adults.
The new variant might make children “as equally susceptible as adults,” Wendy Barclay, a government adviser and virologist at Imperial College London, told The New York Times.
However transmissibility has been impacted, public health experts are emphatic: Social distancing, masking, and hand hygiene remain the best ways to reduce the spread.
Do the vaccines cover the mutated virus, too?
We don’t know for sure, but experts are fairly confident that the vaccines we have right now will still provide immunity against this latest iteration of the virus.
“There’s no reason to believe that the vaccines that have been developed will not be effective against this virus,” Vivek Murthy, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for surgeon general, told NBC News.
Testing is underway to see how the vaccines stack up against these new mutations, said Deborah Fuller, professor of microbiology at the University of Washington. But this is not the first time this coronavirus has mutated, and none of those variants thus far have been able to evade the vaccines currently in distribution.
“Based on the mutations we’ve seen so far, the expectation is that this mutation should not impact the ability of these vaccines to protect against it,” Fuller told Bloomberg TV.
Mutations over time could indeed render the vaccines we have right now ineffective. But it should take years for the virus to evolve that much – not months.
“No one should worry that there is going to be a single catastrophic mutation that suddenly renders all immunity and antibodies useless,” Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, told The New York Times. “It is going to be a process that occurs over the time scale of multiple years and requires the accumulation of multiple viral mutations.”
Who’s next in line for a vaccine?
Likely, frontline essential workers and people with underlying conditions who are at “extremely high risk” for complications from Covid. But the details are still being worked out.
On Sunday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published vaccine guidance, advising states to prioritize vaccinating people age 75 and older and essential workers such as postal workers, grocery store clerks, and teachers.
The CDC guidance doesn’t provide details and isn’t binding. “Keep in mind that any state can really do what it wants to,” said Vermont Health Commissioner Mark Levine at a press conference on Tuesday. But, he added, the federal guidance is worth taking into consideration.
“Obviously these are people who have expertise, and especially in the area of ethics, which is really first and foremost one of the concerns and considerations when you design a priority group around a scarce resource,” Levine said.
The state’s advisory vaccine committee will meet on Wednesday, according to department spokesperson Katie Warchut.
Who’s been vaccinated so far?
Some health care workers and residents and staff at elder care facilities. Those innoculations will continue for the next few weeks. The first rounds of vaccines for other older Vermonters and essential workers are expected to begin at the end of January.
Have a question? Email us at coronavirus@vtdigger.org.