{"id":7472,"date":"2021-02-09T19:15:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T19:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qpol.qub.ac.uk\/?p=7472"},"modified":"2021-02-09T19:15:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T19:15:00","slug":"coronavirus-variants-are-they-really-more-deadly-heres-what-scientists-know-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/coronavirus-variants-are-they-really-more-deadly-heres-what-scientists-know-so-far\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus variants: are they really more deadly? Here\u2019s what scientists know so far"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One certainty during a pandemic is that the virus will mutate. SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, is no different. But how concerned should we be about the new variants of the virus that are arising in places such as the UK, South Africa and Brazil<\/a>? Are they more lethal or more transmissible than the original virus?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the UK, for example, Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently claimed that the new variant may be 30%-40% more lethal<\/a> than the old one, though this has since been played down<\/a> by scientists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every time a virus enters a host and begins to replicate it quickly starts to make mistakes \u2013 that\u2019s how mutations arise. Most of these mistakes are actually very harmful to the virus, while other mutations are neutral and don\u2019t really affect it at all. In very rare instances, however, a mutation might confer an advantage over the original virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Level of transmission<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of December, data started to emerge<\/a> about a variant of the COVID-19 virus, called B.1.1.7 \u2013 since dubbed the \u201cBritish variant\u201d or the \u201cKent strain\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initial epidemiological reports claimed that this variant was much more transmissible than the original SARS-CoV-2 virus, with some even reporting that transmission was 70% greater<\/a>. With evidence suggesting that this variant arose in September, this would help to explain the dramatic rise in cases that we\u2019ve seen in south-east England since then. This initial estimate of 70% has, however, been downgraded several times<\/a> since then in other studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another explanation for the rapid rise of the Kent variant or indeed any virus variant is the \u201cfounder effect<\/a>\u201d. This is a phenomenon in evolution where a small group, which happens to be affected by a mutation, ends up spreading it more than other populations. This is down to chance rather than the mutation providing any advantage at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To continue reading, please click here. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Article originally appeared in The Conversation.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image appears courtesy of Shutterstock<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr David Courtney asks whether the new variants of COVID-19 are more lethal or more transmissible than the original virus. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2599,"featured_media":7362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[918],"class_list":["post-7472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-and-wellbeing","tag-covid-19"],"mb":[],"acf":{"authors":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":null,"value":null,"field":{"ID":9774,"key":"field_66d0cbf58f930","label":"Authors","name":"authors","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"relationship","value":null,"menu_order":1,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":9772,"wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"post_type":["authors"],"post_status":["publish"],"taxonomy":"","filters":["search"],"return_format":"id","min":0,"max":10,"allow_in_bindings":0,"elements":["featured_image"],"bidirectional":0,"bidirectional_target":[],"_name":"authors","_valid":1}},"description":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":"","value":"","field":{"ID":9776,"key":"field_66d2183027749","label":"Description","name":"description","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"wysiwyg","value":null,"menu_order":3,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":9772,"wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"default_value":"","allow_in_bindings":0,"tabs":"all","toolbar":"basic","media_upload":0,"delay":1,"_name":"description","_valid":1}}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/76\/2020\/12\/shutterstock_1654034092-scaled-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"mfb_rest_fields":["title","jetpack_featured_media_url","jetpack_sharing_enabled","amp_enabled"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2599"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}