New ‘SUPER MUTANT’ Covid strains may emerge, Govt scientist warns
“SUPER mutant” versions of the coronavirus will emerge in the future and we are “only at the beginning”, an expert has warned.
There are already a series of new Covid variants that have evolved to be fast-spreading and able to escape immunity.
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But moving forward, Prof Ravi Gupta, professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said the virus is going to do “weird” things.
The virus would try to become more efficient at infecting people as the population builds immunity.
And there will always be people at risk of death, even with jabs, Prof Gupta warned.
Coronavirus is unpredictable and we should not be overconfident at any stage, said the member of the government scientific advisory group Nervtag.
“The virus is going to do some weird things,” Prof Rupta told a press briefing.
“I mean, this is just the beginning. I think it’s going to recombine, you’re going to get super mutant viruses, I believe.”
Recombination, when two variants mix together to create a hybrid, is important for the virus to evolve.
When two variants merge together, it is called a “recombinant” - and there are already some in existence.
Prof Rupta said: “But that’s not necessarily a terrible thing, but the virus is going to do very unexpected things because the amount of pressure on it is going to be severe, so it will adapt.”
He added: “It’s hard to say what is going to happen, but the virus is going to find ways of becoming more infectious.
“You can see that already, when it’s under pressure it will try and be more efficient in transmission so that it can achieve the job with fewer virus particles.”
Prof Gupta said “we need to keep the pressure on vaccine designers, manufacturers” to keep adapting vaccines to fight new variants.
The current generation of jabs - including AstraZeneca and Pfizer - work to some degree against the most concerning variants, but are weaker.
As vaccine designers tweak jabs to keep on top of the virus, it's likely people will need boosters, possibly every year.
Prof Gupta said for most vaccinated people who unfortunately get Covid it will be a mild illness, even with the “super variants”.
But there will always be some vulnerable people who could die.
He explained: “We see with flu, we have a lot of deaths each year from flu in vulnerable groups.
“We try to vaccinate them first to protect them, but it doesn’t always work.
“But I don’t think we should say it’s going to be like flu automatically, I think that this is an unpredictable virus and we shouldn’t be overconfident at any stage.”
It comes amid the spread of the Indian variant, which is both highly transmissible and able to weaken vaccines.
Professor Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist at Imperial College London, told the briefing England’s “Freedom Day” on June 21 will depend on how transmissible the Indian variant is.
Scientists on Sage believe it could be high as 50 per cent more transmissible than the Kent variant.
Prof Ferguson, a member of Sage, said how much more transmissible it is found to be will “determine whether any future third wave in the UK, for instance in the summer or early autumn is manageable”.
We may “need to reconsider the rate of reopening and maybe slow the next step”, he said.
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He explained: “I think it’s actually too early to say whether we will be able to go ahead with what was planned in the UK in mid June and the next step, basically a full relaxation of measures.
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“Or whether that fourth stage of relaxation will need to be postponed or indeed, in the worst case, measures need to be tightened up.
“We’re getting more and more data every week, but we hope to be in a position to be more definitive about these answers in the next two to three weeks.”