That’s right folks. COVID-19 may no longer be the same critter Trump invited to our country back in December and January. According to a team of scientists from Taiwan and Australia, they found:
Summary
20. Monitoring the mutation dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 is critical for the development of effective approaches to contain the
21. pathogen. By analyzing 106 SARS-CoV-2 and 39 SARS genome sequences, we provided direct genetic evidence that
22. SARS-CoV-2 has a much lower mutation rate than SARS. Minimum Evolution phylogeny analysis revealed the putative
23. original status of SARS-CoV-2 and the early-stage spread history. The discrepant phylogenies for the spike protein and its
24. receptor binding domain proved a previously reported structural rearrangement prior to the emergence of SARS-CoV-2.
25. Despite that we found the spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 is particularly more conserved, we identified a mutation that
26. leads to weaker receptor binding capability, which concerns a SARS-CoV-2 sample collected on 27th January 2020 from
27. India. This represents the first report of a significant SARS-CoV-2 mutant, and raises the alarm that the ongoing vaccine
28. development may become futile in future epidemic if more mutations were identified.
www.biorxiv.org/…
To be sure, the finding has not been peer reviewed yet, but I am sure parties of interest, treaters, vaccine researchers, and investigators are following up. If the science is confirmed, watch out, world.
One comment was scary — what if people who appear to be healed, then appear to be reinfected, could they be reinfected by the mutated COVID bug, and not the original? Which suggests that any herd immunity we hope to achieve is little more than a pipe dream.
The article also cites influenza as a prime example of how a virus mutates from year to year, and an older version of flu fails to provide immunity for future mutations of flu bugs. (Yearly flu shots do have a scientific basis)
When I litigate and search to hire experts, I much prefer peer reviewed studies, as they replicate and confirm initial findings. Much more of a solid basis for the finding. In fact, Daubert and its progeny do their best to keep junk science out of the courts. But this article seems to have substance and insight based on the researchers’ experience. It was expected that changes would evolve, but this seems rather fast.