corona variants consequences
Some of the potential consequences of emerging variants are the following:
- Ability to spread more quickly in people: D614G, confers increased ability to spread more quickly than the wild-type SARS-CoV-2. In the laboratory, 614G variants propagate more quickly in human respiratory epithelial cells, outcompeting 614D viruses. There also is epidemiologic evidence that the 614G variant spreads more quickly than viruses without the mutation.
- Ability to cause either milder or more severe disease in people: B.1.1.7 variant may be associated with an increased risk of death compared to other variants.
- Ability to evade detection by specific viral diagnostic tests: B.1.1.7 has S gene target failure
- Decreased susceptibility to therapeutic agents such as monoclonal antibodies. B.1.1.28
- Ability to evade natural or vaccine-induced immunity: B.1.1.28
Ability to evade vaccine-induced immunity: Once a large population is vaccinated, there will be immune pressure that could favor and accelerate emergence of such variants by selecting for “escape mutants.” There is no evidence that this is occurring, and most experts believe escape mutants are unlikely to emerge because of the nature of the virus.
· “Wild-type” refers to the strain of virus – or background strain – that contains no major mutations.