Dubai: There are some 4,000 variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 circulating globally. Virologists studying these variants have an urgent mission: to learn as much as possible and as soon as possible about them in order to control their spread. Experts want to understand whether the variants:
Spread more easily from person-to-person
Cause milder or more severe disease in people
Are detected by currently available viral tests
Respond to medicines currently being used to treat people for COVID-19
Change the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines
In the next few days or weeks, the answers to these questions would give scientists the confidence to advice policy makers on the next logical steps to get a grip on the virus.