The new mutation makes the virus more likely to infect people but does not seem to make them any sicker than earlier variations of the virus, an international team of researchers reported yesterday. 9News
The mutation affects the spike protein – the structure the virus uses to get into the cells it infects. Now the researchers are checking to see whether this affects whether the virus can be controlled by a vaccine.
The study, published in the journal Cell, confirms earlier work suggesting the mutation had made the new variant of virus more common. "The current work suggests that while the G614 variant may be more infectious, it is not more pathogenic. There is a hope that as SARS-CoV-2 infection spreads, the virus might become less pathogenic," he said in a statement.
"The increase in G614 frequency often continues well after stay-at-home orders are in place and past the subsequent two-week incubation period," they added. "We now had experimental evidence that supported, in part, what Bette was seeing in her analysis of the sequences across the globe – the G form had a fitness advantage in terms of infectivity."
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