Corona mutants who want to spoil our year 2021 (COVID-19)

Just when we thought it would the year 2021 year of recovery from the pandemic crisis, it seems that the real fight is on COVID-19 and its mutations just started.

The year 2020 predicted a long and rather dark winter. But unfortunately, this one is now looking even bleaker than we first thought. Just as the first vaccines against the coronavirus showed the light at the end of the tunnel and in a way heralded the end the COVID-19 pandemic, on the other hand, there are new "versions" of the virus COVID-19 have become a growing concern as they have been detected in more than 40 countries, including Slovenia. The so-called "Scottish" mutation and the virus from South Africa, however, present the world with new challenges and pose several professional dilemmas to scientists, which are extremely worrying.

The aggressiveness of the spread these new ones mutations is shocking because in just a few weeks, some regions of the world have been replaced by common variants of the virus. A Scottish Mutation however, in certain countries the number of new infections has already skyrocketed. It's a good example United Kingdom, where the virus became dominant in just over two months (October – December). It is for this reason that new and strict measures and restrictions were immediately needed, the relaxation of which is not in sight.

Mutations therefore, they are spreading all over the world at an unstoppable speed, and at the same time they are becoming the dominant "strain" or version of the virus. V last thursday This week, the director of the World Health Organization called on the old continent (Europe) to take urgent measures to control the coronavirus and immediately introduce even stricter measures. At the same time, he urged them to speed up DNA analysis of the strains of the virus among the tested population.

All viruses mutate as they move through the population, and mutations are completely natural and self-evident. In the case of SARS-CoV-2, they did not cause major concerns until recently. But the virus with the tag B.1.1.7 (Great Britain) and label 501Y.V2 (South Africa) have surprisingly many changes in the protein part of the virus that fits into the receptor in human cells that allows the virus to infect.

These changes make the new versions more contagious - than the previous versions already an above-average contagious virus. Although there is no evidence that they cause a more severe disease, more cases definitely mean a greater burden on health institutions and, consequently, an increasing mortality rate. It would be uncontrollable for Slovenia spike in infections can be tragic, since the system is already operating at the upper limit of its capacity.

Some researchers are vocal about the fact that the mutations could evade currently available vaccines. That's why doctors, virologists and other researchers are urging officials to vaccinate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, as if it were an unprecedented emergency situation. Vaccine manufacturers are urged to urgently expand vaccine production capacities. Only in this way can we really limit the spread of the virus, thereby automatically limiting the possibility of virus mutations. Vaccination of the population will be key, because we are running out of time.

Scientists from South Africa note that the version that appeared there is approx 50 percent more portable, and that the variant of the virus from the United Kingdom is 70 percent more portable from the common SARS-CoV-2 that has prevailed until now.

While vaccine manufacturers such as Pfizer claim that their technologies easily adapt to changes in the virus, we still don't know exactly how existing versions of vaccines will work against new mutations. And as the virus continues to spread, and apparently much faster with new variants, the likelihood of more dangerous mutations is increasing.

Put simply: the more virus in the ecosystem, the statistically greater chance of mutations. Thus, new variants of the virus and future mutations of these variants can threaten existing vaccines and herald a new, potentially even more difficult chapter in the pandemic.

Because if vaccines against new strains of the virus are unsuccessful, it will be necessary to re-vaccinate all those who have already been vaccinated. This practically means that we are at the beginning and not at the end of the fight, as many expected. This is also why many experts warn that it is necessary to limit contacts as much as possible and in this way"to suffocate” virus as much as possible. Many are already quietly talking about a strict global "lockdown", which would be the most effective weapon at this moment. Just like China. Because only the strategy of the Chinese, who completely isolate entire areas due to a few cases, is the one that can bring results and very fast improvement.

Why new variants of COVID-19 are so worrisome

Scientists already they warn for a long time, that the effectiveness of vaccines will decrease with virus mutations. With the virus SARS-CoV-2 are the main mutations that give scientists headaches, the proteins of the virus, i.e. the part that allows it to enter human cells. It is also the protein that our existing vaccines are designed for COVID-19, which are currently available. So far, more than have been identified 4,000 virus mutations, but most did not alter the function of the virus and did not cause undue concern.

In rare cases, a mutation can cause changes that give the virus an advantage and make it better in some way. This is precisely what happens with the aforementioned mutations. Also due to the amount of virus in the "system" and the completely statistical possibility of this happening.

A variant B.1.1.7 in the UK it contains 23 mutations in the genome virus, while the South African variant has 501Y.V2 at least 21 mutations, some of which overlap. In both cases, the changes appear to have increased the virus' ability to reproduce.

In the case of the South African version, scientists repeatedly point to a mutation E484K in the receptor binding domain of the virus where it attaches to human cells.

"It has been proven that mutation E484K it reduces antibody recognition," he said Francois Balloux, Professor of Computational Systems Biology at University College London. This means that it can help the virus "bypass the immune protection provided by a previous infection or vaccination."

12,535 #SARSCoV2 genomes were uploaded onto the GISAID database yesterday (twelve thousand five hundred thirty-five on a single day !!!). Those numbers make my head spin, and I'm not confident our computing infrastructure will cope for very long at this rate 😬. pic.twitter.com/0OCWQqzing

— Prof Francois Balloux (@BallouxFrancois) January 15, 2021

Researchers have therefore demonstrated how this can occur in cell culture, but most of these studies have not yet been peer-reviewed. In practice, they made it simple"in vitro” experiment and are a virus with a mutation E484K challenged with plasma from patients who had already overcome the usual COVID-19. At first, the antibodies seemed to defeat the virus. They soon found that plasma has no special effect on this type of virus, despite the presence of antibodies.

Author of the study Rino Rappuoli, professor of vaccine research at Imperial College and chief scientist at the pharmaceutical company GSK, said that when he and his colleagues first carried out the experiment, they had no idea how important their findings would be as they were reflected in real life. What scientists have observed "in vitro" is becoming part of reality. The pharmaceutical company GSK, which also has a vaccine for COVID-19 so he is already thinking about adapting the vaccine.

Many other scientists also come to similar conclusions. Namely, they monitored how the mutations changed the efficiency of the antibody response in people who already had the virus. They also found that he had E484K ability evasion antibodies. A study from South Africa involving plasma from donors who had overcome normal COVID-19, showed that antibodies from a previous infection in about half of the donors were completely ineffective against the new variant.

But you have to be careful here! It is about survivorship studies patients with COVID-19 and not those who received the vaccine. For now, it is not known exactly how people in clinical studies who have already received the vaccine will react.

Still, Rappuoli said the findings are extremely concerning. "If we give the virus too much time under immune pressure, this virus can escape."

This will go down in history as one of science and medical research's greatest achievements. Perhaps the most impressive.
I put together a preliminary timeline of some key milestones to show how several years of work were compressed into months. pic.twitter.com/BPcaZwDFkl

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A race against time

Vaccine manufacturers such as Pfizer and AstraZeneca point out that according to the first analyses, their vaccines they work successfully against new versions. Thus, they found that the vaccine is effective against the B.1.1.7 mutation, which makes it unlikely that the latter would escape the vaccine. Should a vaccine-resistant variant emerge, BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin told the media that the new vaccine could be produced in as little as six weeks. Namely, the advantage of new vaccines is that vaccine developers only have to change DNA or mRNA (RNA information) to adapt the vaccine, which they can do quickly and easily if necessary.

Most importantly, these new vaccines would not require revalidation and extensive clinical trials by regulatory institutions. The approval process, however, would be very similar approval of vaccines against seasonal flu.

Despite all of the above, all scientists emphasize that we are in a race against time and that we must react extremely quickly and limit the virus.

What awaits us in 2021?

In order to defeat the virus in time, i.e. before it gets out of control, it is the task of each individual to limits the virus as much as possible and to take care of preventing the spread of the virus. In fact, most virologists are extremely worried, but do not want to cause any panic, even though this is crucial at the moment, because the statistical possibility of developing a mutation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which could have a much more severe course of the disease than the existing one, is increasing day by day versions.

Therefore, researchers and health professionals hope to reduce the number of cases and increase quickly herd immunity with existing vaccines, but at the same time they will prepare for the changes of the virus that they can expect.

To traced the mutations and understand how they can affect vaccine effectiveness, governments need to invest more in genomic sequencing, Dr Lessells said. The latter is done too little, also because of the demanding process of determining the type of virus. According to Dr Lessells around 10 per cent of cases are sequenced in the UK, which is at the highest level of sequencing worldwide. Many countries only analyze a little more than a percentage of the tests.

But there is absolutely another way to prevent dangerous mutations from occurring: preventing cases from happening in the first place by wearing masks, social distancing, rapid testing, and treating and isolating infected people. A virus cannot mutate unless it reproduces and spreads through the population.

For now, the emergence of the worrisome mutations is a reminder that we still have a long way to go despite our collective fatigue, Dr Lessells said.

What about Slovenia?

V Slovenia we have already detected the so-called "Scottish” mutation, but it is not known what amount of samples we are actually analyzing. Considering the fact that the virus is present in practically all neighboring countries, we have to ask ourselves whether we Slovenians are really that lucky that this dominant strain has released us from its clutches and we are still seemingly safe. Statistically speaking, everything speaks against this fact. And of course this virus is also present here. While in Bavaria they are introducing strict measures, which include wearing an N95 mask in closed public spaces and public transport, in Slovenia we are thinking about opening kindergartens and schools, despite the fact that the presence of the virus in the system is really large and very worrying, and that according to the "government" traffic light, we are really only one step away from the "black" phase.

Many scientists warn, that this kind of opening up of life could mean the possibility for the virus to undergo some more mutations and become more dangerous, and above all vaccine resistant. Everyone is calling for greater investment in waste water analysis, which is one of the better indicators of the presence of the virus in the population. Most scientists agree that due to the greater virulence of the new strain, new, stricter social distancing rules must come into effect, and that we must start using better protection - i.e. N95 masks in all public spaces. But everyone is of the opinion that as many people as possible should be vaccinated as quickly as possible. Because only herd immunity can prevent the spread of the virus and its ability to change with the amount of transmissions.

When it seemed the year 2021 the year of recovery from the pandemic, according to all indicators, the year is starting when we will really start the fight against this invisible enemy. The main components are time and statistics, which unfortunately are not on our side. This is also why the decisive action and struggle of every individual is important right now! Only together can we preserve the world as we knew it.