Wednesday, November 25, 2020

A Early Mutation Responsible for Making Pandemic Harder to Stop

    Recent research on the covid-19 pandemic suggests that a specific mutation aids the virus to spread more easily from person to person, making the virus harder to stop. A mutation first spotted in China called 614G has been debated by scientists of why the it is supposedly allowing quick spreading (Glanz, 2020). Although there is no evidence that 614G causes more severe coronavirus symptoms, the new mutation suggests more rapid spreading in comparison to the original variant (Glanz, 2020). One study at the University of North Carolina tested a 614G variant and an ancestral version, discovering that the 614G virus variants were more infectious in human nasal and bronchial tissue (Glanz, 2020). In other new experiments with animals, scientists discovered that animals infected with the new 614G variant spread the virus more quickly than animals with the original strain (Goodman, 2020) This results in the necessity for scientists to take extreme caution due to the rapid spread rate of the mutation. On the other hand, some researches stated that a lack of adequate containment measures is largely to blame for recent outbreaks instead of the mutation (Glanz, 2020).


Sources: 

Glanz, J., Carey, B., & Beech, H. (2020, November 24). Evidence Builds That an Early Mutation Made the Pandemic Harder to Stop. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/24/world/covid-mutation.html?searchResultPosition=2

Goodman, B. (2020, November 13). Study: New Mutation Sped Up Spread of Coronavirus. Retrieved  from https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201113/study-new-coronavirus-mutation-accelerates-spread

Links:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/24/world/covid-mutation.html?searchResultPosition=2

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201113/study-new-coronavirus-mutation-accelerates-spread

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