London – British scientists say the rapidly spreading COVID-19 variant first discovered in southern England is evolving in ways that exist vaccines less effective against it. The UK has mutations of the coronavirus has been a leader in tracking changes in the genetic code of the virus for months.
Authorities in England are trying to test anyone over the age of 16 in many neighborhoods where a few cases of yet another troubling variant – first discovered in South Africa – have been found. But even as Britain rushed to find and stop that highly contagious species, scientists found that the British variety seemed to mutate in a way that mimics the South African.
The discovery has raised concerns about the virus’s continued evolution, suggesting evidence can lead to resistance to the vaccines is being rolled out around the world.
“The virus improves itself over time,” said Sharon Peacock, who leads a nationwide network of British scientists who monitor the transformations better than anywhere else in the world, said Roxana Saberi, CBS News correspondent.
For the coronavirus, Peacock says, “it’s a matter of natural selection. It’s the survival of the fittest.”
She tells CBS News that her team at COVID-19 Genomics UK hunts every day in labs across the UK for new mutations that “really give us a barcode for the virus.”
That hunt depends on both robots and human researchers studying thousands of samples of COVID-19 and mapping mutations in the virus’s genetic code.
In November, they saw something alarming: mutations, many in the virus’s spike protein, which allowed it to attach better to cells, making it much more contagious.
While 10 people infected with the old variants of the virus could be expected to pass it on to 13 others, 10 people carrying the new variant discovered in Kent, southeast London, could infect about 20.
“That’s very important,” says Peacock, “because more people can get sick and therefore more people are likely to die from the burden of the disease.”
Quickly referred to as the “British variety”, the new species has since then swept around the world, prompting the US and many other countries to tighten their travel restrictions. Germany and Austria now require anyone venturing into most public places to wear medical-grade masks, not just cloth face coverings, and the UK has imposed a third national lockdown.
Scientists in the UK say that as COVID-19 continues to mutate, the rest of the world also needs to do more genetic sequencing – and the The US is catching up. Currently, less than 1% of coronavirus samples in the US are sequenced, compared to about 10% in the UK, meaning many dangerous mutations can be missed.
Peacock says it is “very likely” that COVID-19 variants are more widespread in the US than is currently known, “and I think sequencing will be vital to detect that.”
Ravi Gupta, professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge, tells CBS News that vaccines will likely need to be redesigned by the end of this year to adapt to new mutations. A senior researcher from pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca said on Wednesday that the work would be done “as soon as possible.”
“We are working very hard and we are already talking about not only the variants that we need to make in laboratories, but also the clinical trials that we need to conduct,” Mene Pangalos said at a press conference. “We’re really aiming to have something ready by fall, so this year.”