January 05, 2020

Andrew Campbell 

The World Health Organization (WHO) has updated on January 5 that the confirmed COVID-19 cases reached more than 84 million and over 1.8 million confirmed deaths. At the beginning of 2021, the world seems strangled in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and infection continues to rise steadily.

Worst of all, many thousands of different versions of mutations or variants of the COVID-19 pandemic virus are circulating worldwide. The UK variant was first identified in December of 2020. Experts have found it is much more contagious than COVID-19 but much less lethal. In particular, the one mutated most recently from the South African variant is named 501.V2.

Some scientists worry the South Africa variant may be resistant to available vaccines. Reportedly, CEO of BioNTech Dr. Uğur Şahin and Regius Professor of Medicine John Bell at the University of Oxford are currently carrying out experiments with both 501.V2 and the UK variant called B.1.1.7 to verify if people inoculated by COVID-19 vaccines may be vulnerable to these new strains. Earlier, Dr. Uğur Şahin stated that he was confident that his vaccine would work against the UK variant.

Besides, according to Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, we don’t have to worry too much since it would take years if the viral mutations become able to resist current vaccines, since the effect of the vaccines lessens gradually, not abruptly. Doctors all over the world also promise that they will fight against vaccination campaigns as planned.

Photo:Webshot.