The novel coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China, has since mutated into a new strain, creating the new version that has spread across the U.S., a new study has suggested.
The new strain appears to be more contagious than the first, according to the study. The second strain began to spread throughout Europe in February before slipping into other parts of the world, including the United States. According to the study, the new strain became the more dominant strain of the virus, as the Deseret News’ Jeff Parrott reported
The researchers warned that the coronavirus could mutate even more and limit the impact of vaccines — especially if the coronavirus doesn’t slow its spread in the summer months, according to the study, which was published BioRxiv last week.
The researchers come from the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Lead author of the study, Bette Korber, commented on the research in a Facebook post, according to the Los Angeles Times. According to CNBC, the study has not been peer-reviewed. The researchers said the news of a mutation is concerning.
But this isn’t the first study to suggest there was a second strain. In March, researchers from Peking University’s School of Life Scenes and the Institute Pasteur of Shanghai found that the type “L” strain was aggressive and created 70% of all cases. But the second strain, called type “S” wasn’t all aggressive, accounting for 30% of the cases, as I reported for the Deseret News.
The type “L” strain was prevalent during the early days of the outbreak.
The study researchers said: “Human intervention may have placed more severe selective pressure on the L type, which might be more aggressive and spread more quickly. On the other hand, the S type, which is evolutionarily older and less aggressive, might have increased in relative frequency due to relatively weaker selective pressure.”