New Mutant Strain of Corona Virus: All You Need to Know

A new strain of Corona Virus is sweeping across the South of England, encouraging restrictions in the country and flights ban from within Europe as well as globally. The United Kingdom has said that the fast-moving new variant of the virus can be 70 per cent more transmissible than the existing strains, and appears to be driving the rapid spread of new infections in London and South England. There has been a strict lockdown imposed in the United Kingdom and its surrounding areas cancelling Christmas.  

The panic spread as the statement from the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson came on Saturday, stating the new strain of Covid-19 is spreading more rapidly than the earlier ones. As a result, several countries have ban flights to and from UK and India have joined the list on Monday, as flights to and from the United Kingdom are banned from 22nd to 31st December. However, government officials have mentioned on Monday that no strain of the new Corona Virus has been detected in India.  

The infectious Covid-19 has undergone several mutations over the years, but the appearance of the new strain of the coronavirus has been setting alarm not only in the UK but across the world. At the time when all the countries are waiting for a vaccine, the discovery of the new variant and posed several questions: Can the vaccine stop the new strain of the coronavirus? Is a new strain more dangerous?
 
However, the scientists are saying that all viruses mutate, and that is in their nature, even the flu virus mutates and hence, the vaccines need to be updated frequently. The coronavirus has muted before once at the start of the pandemic, and the virus is updating itself all the time.  
So far the scientists have noted that two major mutations in the virus have caused Covid-19, the H69/V70 deletion, and the D164G, both of which affects the spike proteins, which helps the virus to bind to the human cell and infect it. It is this ability that the vaccine seeks to target and weaken it. After the virus was first detected in Wuhan it has muted many times most of which has gone unnoticed.  

The BBC reported that if the strain that is infecting people now is compared to the first one that spread in Wuhan a total of 25 mutations will be visible, that is a little more than two mutations every month. The scientists have said the more human body gets adaptable to the virus, the virus also tends to fight back by trying to evade the body’s immune system.