record for new infections for a fifth day in a row at more than 350,000. For far too long, national and local authorities only half-heartedly fought the pandemic; regulations were quickly relaxed again even mass gatherings were permitted.
E484Q escape mutation
Scientists call a mutation that helps a virus slip past our immune system an escape mutation. According to Germany s Robert Koch Institute, these mutations generally lead to a reduced neutralizability by antibodies or T-cells. What matters is how strong that reduction is, however.
Researchers see no reason to believe that the variants will evade existing vaccines
Escape mutations can be dangerous for people who have been vaccinated and people who have recovered from COVID-19 infections, as well, because they are presumably not as able to defend against the variants, even if their bodies had developed immunity to the virus. It is not yet clear whether people who are inoculated but who contract the virus are infecti
âEscape Mutationsâ May Drive New COVID Resurgence
Feb. 1, 2021 CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, announced Monday that the federal government was sending technical experts to help investigators in Maryland and South Carolina after those states confirmed three cases of the B.1.351 variant of the coronavirus.
B.1.351 was first identified in South Africa. The CDC and World Health Organization have called it a âvariant of concernâ because it has developed changes to its genetic code that make it more menacing than the original version of the virus.
None of the people who caught this version of the coronavirus had traveled, and they were not related, which shows the variant is probably already spreading from person to person in the community.