Now, it has been found that some coronaviruses B.1.1.7 in Britain also have the E484K mutation.
To search for new mutations, British researchers reviewed the 214,159 coronavirus genomes that the United Kingdom sequenced on 26 January. In their report, Public Health England said they found 11 samples of variant B.1.1.7 that also had the E484K mutation.
Since that analysis, more of these viruses have surfaced. NextStrain, a website where scientists gather and analyze coronavirus genomes, now identifies 16 B.1.1.7 variants that carry the E484K mutation.
These B.1.1.7 coronaviruses won the mutation thanks to random copy errors as they multiplied within people. The coronavirus evolutionary tree suggests that 15 of the variants are descended from a common ancestor that won the E484K mutation. Meanwhile, the sixteenth variant appears to have gained the same mutation on its own.
Commenting on Monday’s report, Kristian Andersen, a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., Said it was still impossible to say whether the E484K mutation would make these coronaviruses not only more contagious, but more resistant to vaccines. “It is too early to speculate whether this will happen, so we will have to wait for the data,” he said.
Just because the E484K mutation helps variant B.1351, the one initially found in South Africa, avoiding antibodies does not mean it will do the same in other variants. That’s because mutations don’t have a fixed effect. The impact of a single new mutation on a virus depends on the other mutations that the variant already carries.
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Currently, more than 150 million people – almost half the population – can be vaccinated. But each state makes the final decision about who goes first. The country’s 21 million health workers and three million residents in long-term care facilities were the first to qualify. In mid-January, federal authorities urged all states to open eligibility for all people aged 65 and over and adults of any age with medical conditions that put them at high risk of becoming seriously ill or dying from Covid-19. . Adults in the general population are at the rear of the line. If federal and state health officials can resolve bottlenecks in vaccine delivery, all 16 years and older will be eligible as early as this spring or early summer. The vaccine has not been approved in children, although studies are ongoing. It may take months before a vaccine is available to anyone under the age of 16. Go to your state’s health website for up-to-date information on vaccination policies in your area
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This must be determined. It is possible that Covid-19 vaccines will become an annual event, as well as the flu vaccine. Or it may be that the benefits of the vaccine last for more than a year. We have to wait to see how durable vaccine protection is. To determine this, the researchers will screen vaccinated people for “innovative cases” – those who fall ill with Covid-19 despite the vaccination. This is a sign of weakened protection and will give researchers clues as to how long the vaccine lasts. They will also monitor the levels of antibodies and T cells in the blood of vaccinated people to determine if and when a booster injection may be needed. It is conceivable that people need reinforcements every few months, once a year or just every few years. It is just a matter of waiting for the data.
But in a report posted online on Tuesday, Rajiv Gupta, a virologist at the University of Cambridge, and his colleagues reported on an experiment they carried out to resolve just that issue. They combined the E484K mutation with other key mutations found in variant B.1.1.7, the one initially found in Britain. The addition of the E484K mutation made it difficult for antibodies to block viruses. The researchers wrote that “they observed a significant loss of neutralizing activity”.
However, Dr. Gupta and his colleagues used antibodies taken from people who received only the first of two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. It remains to be seen whether variant B.1.1.7 with the new mutation, E484K, can escape the antibodies after a complete vaccination.