Coronavirus mutates but is actually stable
Current crop of vaccines shouldn’t be affected.
By Rebecca Rockett, Alicia Arnott and Fabienne Brilot-Turville, University of Sydney
“Coronavirus” has already established itself as the scary new word of 2020. Add the word “mutant”, and you’ve got an even stronger candidate for the scary new phrase of 2021.
One fear is that critical parts of the coronavirus genome will mutate, making any vaccine obsolete before it’s widely rolled out next year.
But how much of an issue is this really? As we’ll see, SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, mutates, as do all viruses. But unlike other RNA viruses, it’s actually quite stable.