The virus that causes covid-19 is evolving, and it’s complicating our efforts to end the pandemic, says an article published in Gates Notes.
Few Things that would help understand the variant more
- If you’ve ever gotten a flu shot, you’ve already dealt with a virus variant.
The coronavirus, like all viruses, has only one goal to replicate itself. Every time the virus invades your cells, it tricks the cell into following the instructions encoded in its RNA to make more copies of the virus.When the cell is making a new virus, it has to copy those instructions. every once in a while, there’s a change that makes it easier for the virus to infect people or evade the immune system. When that change starts to spread through a population, a new variant emerges.
- We’re seeing the same mutations pop up again and again. That may be good news.
Compared to influenza viruses, which are made up of eight genetic segments that can be rearranged in lots of different ways the coronavirus is a much simpler virus. The most notable mutations we’ve seen so far have happened in the same spot: the spike protein that sticks out of the surface of the virus.If the spike protein changes just a little, it might bind with cells more effectively or become harder for the immune system to target. But if it changes too much, the virus can no longer gain the entry that’s key to its lifecycle. That limited capacity for change may explain why we keep seeing the same mutations appear in different places rather than lots of distinct variations.
- The virus is changing, but the path to ending the pandemic remains the same.
For the last year, public health experts have been repeating some form of the same message: we need to contain COVID-19 as best we can until the vaccine is ready and available for everyone.The best way to prevent new variants from emerging is by stopping transmission of the virus altogether. If we remain vigilant about social distancing, wearing a mask, and getting vaccinated, we will bring the pandemic to an end much sooner.
- Variants make it even more important that vaccines are made available everywhere.
The more the virus that causes COVID-19 is out there in the world, the more opportunities it has to evolve—and to develop new ways of fighting our defenses against it. The best way to make sure it doesn’t is by getting the vaccine out to everyone who needs it, no matter where they live. That’s why our foundation is working with governments, vaccine manufacturers, organizations like CEPI and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and others to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to low-income countries through an initiative called COVAX.
- We can do better next time.
Virus variants are inevitable. If we ever find ourselves in a pandemic scenario again where a pathogen is spreading around the globe, we should expect to see it adapt to survive our attempts to stop it—just as we saw with COVID-19.There’s no doubt that variants complicate our efforts to bring an end to this pandemic. Even once the worst is behind us, we’ll need to remain vigilant. Fortunately, we know what we need to do to stop them from emerging. For now, the best thing you can do to protect yourself is to follow public health guidelines and get vaccinated as soon as you’re eligible.
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Source: GatesNotes
