01-22-2021, 06:17 AM
Putting things in context is needed here!
That's pretty much expected -if one knows what a retrovirus is and- given the still ongoing state of a pandemic inside the Human population worldwide.
A retrovirus is highly mutable, the more hosts they infect the more mutations it will acquire; the beneficial mutations will help it expand and thrive while the bad ones will weaken it and perhaps kill it in the long run. That's what it means to be a VIRUS after all!...
Thus, for as long as there is no herd immunity at a GLOBAL LEVEL, you'll be hearing about new variants here and there across the globe. The UK one that the OP is referring to is just one among MANY that was detected back in Sept. but wasn't widely publicized till people on the ground noticed that it's spreading at a much faster infection rate, hence the general alarm.
Variants popping up here and there is NORMAL and the risk that some of them may acquire more virulence than the initial(/ancestral) 'strain' is real hence the importance of developing a vaccine that will help shore up the immune defences of a substantial portion of the Human population across the globe thus limiting the ever expansion of the SARS-CoV-2 virus till its complete eradication (which will take years, if ever!). This is why Herd Immunity is key/important.
(12-22-2020, 04:46 AM)sAmI Wrote: What would be your opinion on it?
That's pretty much expected -if one knows what a retrovirus is and- given the still ongoing state of a pandemic inside the Human population worldwide.
A retrovirus is highly mutable, the more hosts they infect the more mutations it will acquire; the beneficial mutations will help it expand and thrive while the bad ones will weaken it and perhaps kill it in the long run. That's what it means to be a VIRUS after all!...
Thus, for as long as there is no herd immunity at a GLOBAL LEVEL, you'll be hearing about new variants here and there across the globe. The UK one that the OP is referring to is just one among MANY that was detected back in Sept. but wasn't widely publicized till people on the ground noticed that it's spreading at a much faster infection rate, hence the general alarm.
Variants popping up here and there is NORMAL and the risk that some of them may acquire more virulence than the initial(/ancestral) 'strain' is real hence the importance of developing a vaccine that will help shore up the immune defences of a substantial portion of the Human population across the globe thus limiting the ever expansion of the SARS-CoV-2 virus till its complete eradication (which will take years, if ever!). This is why Herd Immunity is key/important.