Is the United States ready to fight the new variant of the novel coronavirus? One of the states with a high surge of COVID-19 cases seems prepared.
What’s going on?
The United Kingdom recently found a new mutated version of the novel coronavirus in testing, which prompted nationwide shutdowns, as well as new restrictions across Europe, which I wrote about for the Deseret News.
- It’s unclear if the virus has made its way to the United States yet.
Experts weigh in on the rise
Two experts spoke with ABC 15 Arizona about the new variant, and how Arizona would handle it.
- Arizona had a massive COVID-19 surge early in the pandemic that was quelled after adding new restrictions.
Mostly, the experts calmed the fears about the variant, comparing it to Lego sets.
Dr. David Engelthaler, director of Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGEN) North in Flagstaff, Arizona, told ABC 15:
- “Some good news. One is that it doesn’t look like there’s any effect of these mutations on how effective the vaccine will be. One of the mutations seems to make the spike protein fit into cell receptors easier. It’s kind of like a better key fitting into a lock. So that makes the virus get in faster, replicate faster and then potentially transmit faster.”
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Dr. Ross Goldberg, director of the Arizona Medical Association, told ABC15:
- “It may surprise people that we have more than one strain of coronavirus out there already that it has mutated many times before this. Imagine a big Lego set and I go change some of the Legos in there. It may have changed some of the internal design, but the overall what it is hasn’t changed.”