{"id":72639,"date":"2020-07-04T08:15:22","date_gmt":"2020-07-04T12:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/?p=72639"},"modified":"2020-07-05T14:12:59","modified_gmt":"2020-07-05T18:12:59","slug":"how-a-mutant-coronavirus-strain-dominated-the-world-scientists-discover-change-to-covid-19-variant-that-lets-it-copy-itself-more-efficiently-making-it-more-infectious-but-not-more-deadly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/how-a-mutant-coronavirus-strain-dominated-the-world-scientists-discover-change-to-covid-19-variant-that-lets-it-copy-itself-more-efficiently-making-it-more-infectious-but-not-more-deadly\/","title":{"rendered":"How a mutant coronavirus strain dominated the world: Scientists discover change to COVID-19 variant that lets it copy itself more efficiently \u2013 making it more infectious (but not more deadly)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
 <\/div>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A small change to a variant of the novel coronavirus has helped it better copy itself but not make it more deadly, a new study suggests.<\/p>\n

Researchers found there were two strains of the virus circulating when it reached the US: the original D614 and a mutation, G614.<\/p>\n

This mutation is not a deadlier version of the coronavirus but it does help the virus copy itself better, which results in a higher viral load in patients.<\/p>\n

Dr Erica Ollmann Saphire, a professor of at the La Jolla Institute of Immunology in California, says viruses often mutate to \u2018escape\u2019 antibodies created by our immune systems.<\/p>\n

This phenomenon of viruses making enough changes to \u2018drift\u2019 away from the original virus is known as antigenic drift.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one reason why new flu shots are needed every fall, because the dominant strain is often so different from the one the year before.<\/p>\n

Health experts say coronavirus mutates at a slower rate than several other respiratory viruses, particularly the the flu.<\/p>\n

For the study, published in the journal Cell, the team tracked the spread of both the G and D viruses.<\/p>\n

They found that while both the D virus and the G virus spread widely around the world, the G strain was more dominant by mid-March.<\/p>\n

Next, researchers analyzed at antibody samples from six San Diego residents who had previously been infected with COVID-19.<\/p>\n

They wanted to see if which variant would be harder to neutralize.<\/p>\n

Results showed the new G virus was just as well neutralized \u2013 and sometimes even better \u2013 as the original D virus.<\/p>\n

This means the immune system doesn\u2019t need to produce more or better-acting antibodies against the G virus, despite it being better at spreading.<\/p>\n

Source: Daily Mail<\/p>\n

\n
\n
 <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  A small change to a variant of the novel coronavirus has helped it better copy itself but not make it more deadly, a new study suggests. Researchers found there were two strains of the virus circulating when it reached the US: the original D614 and a mutation, G614. This mutation is not a deadlier […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":72640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[1971,2575,1973,1974],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72639"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73001,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72639\/revisions\/73001"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}