A new study has identified a mutant coronavirus that is more contagious than the version that spread in the early outbreak.
The study, led by a group of scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, confirmed the new strain of coronavirus came to light in February in Europe and was later found on the East Coast of the United States. The scientists said it has become the dominant strain present in the world since mid-March, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.
The study also found that the virus may have the potential to infect a person a second time, in contrast to the earlier version of the coronavirus, which is unlikely to cause reinfection.
The data, unveiled last week by BioRxiv, which allows researchers to share their work before it’s peer-reviewed, indicate there are multiple combined factors that make the new virus dangerous. The factors include the fact that human beings do not have any direct immunity to the coronavirus (leaving them vulnerable to the infection), that it is highly contagious, and that it has a high mortality rate.
However, some health professionals have disputed the need to fear the new study.
Bill Hanage, associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, wrote on Twitter that mutations in the earlier version of the virus were already predicted and happen as genomes replicate.
“Comes with the territory like showers with the springtime,” Hanage said.
The Los Alamos team was assisted by scientists at Duke University in North Carolina and the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom and identified a total of 14 mutations. The mutations occurred among the nearly 30,000 base pairs of RNA that other scientists say make up the coronavirus’s genome. The report authors focused on a mutation called D614G, which is responsible for the change in the virus’s spikes, per the Los Angeles Times.
