The New Surge of the Covid-19 Variant

What do you think of when you hear the word COVID-19? It’s a word that stimulates fear and distress in many due to its disastrous effects on the world this past year. Lockdowns and restrictions have gotten people frustrated, as they never anticipated being locked away in their house for this long. Although certain countries have been handling COVID-19 effectively, a new variant has emerged that has deadly effects.

This new variant sprang from the United Kingdom when a few researchers from the Genomics UK Consortium (COG-UK), were trying to figure out the cause of high volumes of COVID-19 related cases in the Southeast area of the United Kingdom, despite heavy restrictions being imposed. At first, the researchers had thought the cases were caused by the public for not following the advised government protocols. However, on December 8th 2020, the real reason was found by a group of researchers who found 23 mutations in a patient's lab test. 23 mutations may not seem a large number, but to put that into perspective, more new mutations due to a spike of protein in a virus can increase the chances of it having a higher transmissible rate and/or deadly rate as it anchors down on more cells in the body. Luckily, the new UK variant has not shown more severe impacts than the original variant (COVID-19). This does not make the UK variant less lethal than the original variant, however, as the UK variant can cause more people to be infected and potentially die through increased transmissible rates, especially in areas where COVID-19 is a growing concern such as the UK itself, USA, India, and Brazil. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during a press release at Downing Street had acknowledged the impact of the new variant and said that “there is some evidence that the new variant may be associated with a higher degree of mortality"(Collier, I.).

The most pressing question is as such: how would a virus create a new array of mutations? One of the reasons, though heavily debated, is that these mutations arise from various special hosts. Typically, when a person is infected with COVID-19, they get sick and show symptoms of the virus in up to 14 days after catching it. Then, slowly, the virus in the body weakens due to the immune system building up a defensive wall (where “B” cells create antibodies). However, there are also people with weak immune systems that catch this virus, and because of that, the virus has room to grow. The virus can thrive for multiple weeks due to the immune system's slow response rate and a weak “B” cell wall in a person with a weaker immune system. This gives the virus the opportunity to replicate itself. Many things could go wrong during the replication process, which could lead the variant of the virus to be strengthened or weakened. However, in this case, the UK variant became stronger in terms of transmissible rate. Luckily, it was not in the severity of the disease.

When COVID-19 initially made headlines, it created uncertainty and anxiety, and likewise, this new variant instilled more fear due to its high transmission rate. It also caused concerns on whether the COVID-19 vaccine would work on new variants like the UK variant. No one can say for certain that the current vaccine will work against the new variant just yet, as it has just recently been discovered and is undergoing multiple tests. An important note, however, is that many scientists believe that the current vaccine might be effective towards the UK variant. The Director of NIAD (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) Dr. Anthony Fauci, stated “even though the virus [UK variant], on a one-to-one basis, isn’t more serious, the phenomenon of a more transmissible virus is something that you [should] take seriously… What we likely will be seeing is a diminution in the efficacy of the vaccine — more in South Africa than the UK” (Press Briefing). What Dr. Fauchi meant here was that variants such as the UK one lower the vaccine efficacy, overall effectiveness of the vaccine in the populace tested, of the original vaccine.

Despite the fact that the UK variant is very strong in terms of transmissible rate, it really hasn’t caused a lot of cases around the world to date—the effects are uncertain, as the UK variant is new and rapidly spreading around the world. It is hard to sequence every result using whole genome sequencing to find which type of a variant it is, due to not having proper technological resources that can sequence results in a less time-consuming manner. Experts in Canada state that the “process is too laborious and time-consuming to run on every positive swab.” (Zuber, M. C.). Because of this, there are low numbers of detections of the new variant around the world. And again, this causes it to be deadlier, as there could be hundreds or thousands of UK variant cases out there that aren’t being reported due to a lack of technology that can sample them quickly. Despite this, countries like Canada and the United Kingdom have devised ways to combat this issue: increasing their genomic surveillance efforts nationwide. Genomic surveillance, which helps model potential outbreaks, is currently being used to monitor how the virus would evolve and mutate in particular regions and is currently predicting the COVID-19 virus’ behavior.

Overall, COVID-19 variants like the UK one are still new—and even if they variant shows no severity, one should not ignore it and take it lightly. It is best to be cautious and take extra steps for your own well-being as well as others who are susceptible to severe symptoms from COVID-19. COVID-19 already caused distress around the world but more variants of it are becoming more prevalent in our societies. The UK COVID-19 variant is one of the variants of the COVID-19 that has slowly started to make its move around the world.

Bibliography

Photo: New, the more infectious strain of Covid-19 now dominates global cases of the virus

Sheffield: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/new-strain-covid-more-infectious-1.892276

Press briefing by press SECRETARY Jen Psaki, January 21, 2021. (2021, January 22). Retrieved February 21, 2021, from https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/01/21/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-january-21-2021/

Collier, I. (2021, January 23). COVID-19: UK coronavirus variant may be more deadly than original virus but vaccines combat it, PM says. Retrieved from COVID-19: UK coronavirus variant may be more deadly than original virus but vaccines combat it, PM says | UK News | Sky News

Zuber, M. C. (2021, January 27). Vaccines, boosters, sequencing: What we know about the fight against COVID-19 variants. Retrieved February 21, 2021, from https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/vaccines-boosters-sequencing-what-we-know-about-the-fight-against-covid-19-variants-1.5284179