There are reports out of the UK of a new and much more contagious strain of Covid-19.
Dr. Peter Hotez, Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston says RNA viruses like Covid-19 mutate.
Usually the mutations are not sufficient to cause big changes, either in the severity of the illness or the transmissibility. The UK virus genomics group noted that beginning in Kent, in the Southeast of England moving into London they started seeing more and more cases show up of people having a virus of a particular type with an unexpectedly large number of mutation. It proceeded to go to Scotland and Wales.
"Now a significant percentage of the isolates from the UK are this variant. So it seems to be out-competing the other virus strains. It causes the same illness so it doesn't seem to be affecting the severity of the illness. But the fact that it's outcompeting the others leads to the conjecture that it's more transmissible. So that 70% number is not based on experimental evidence. It's based on a modeling exercise that it seems to be outcompeting the others."
He says the premise is the idea it's 70% more transmissible and some in the scientific community have pushed back on that. He says it could mean there are certain behaviors that account for this.
"The fact that we've gotten burned so many times by this virus, the Prime Minister decided to get ahead of this and warn there is a possibility and get people to take it seriously in case that turns out to be true."
Hotez says this virus has been around since September. He says it's probably global by now and it's likely in the United States.
"When we started doing travel restrictions from China after the virus had entered the United States from Europe and set up that epidemic in New York City, I'm not certain I see the logic entirely."
Hotez believes the current vaccines emerging from Operation Warp Speed will offer protection against this variant.
"It is a reminder that we want to continue doing virus surveillance, because in a few years from now, if this continues to circulate maybe there will be mutations to the point where we will need new vaccines, but I don't see that as something imminent."