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More Vaccine-Resistant, Contagious, and Lethal Coronavirus Mutant: How Bad is the Situation?
After looking at the data, the situation isn’t good, but it’s not catastrophic (yet).
If you have been keeping up with coronavirus development, you’d probably know that things are getting worse. Last week, it was announced that Covid-19 mRNA vaccines are less effective against the U.K. and South Africa SARS-CoV-2 mutants. Preliminary data from the U.K. also shows that the mutant is 30–40% deadlier and 30–70% more transmissible. This article will look at what these numbers really mean in context.
The mutant in the U.K. is called B.1.1.7, N501Y, or 501Y.V1. The one in South Africa is B.1.351, E484K, or 501Y.V2. The one in Brazil is B1.1.28 or 501.V3. The one in Southern California is CAL.20C. Since they go by various names, I’ll just refer them by the country it was first discovered in. Only the U.K. and South Africa mutants will be discussed herein since there’s not much data about the others.
Less effective vaccines?
Thus far, at least three studies — released as preprints from well-respected researchers and institutions — have investigated how the current mRNA vaccines fare against the mutants.
- In one study…
