THE EVOLVING VIRUS Everything You What It Means How Long Before Need to Know About for the Roll-Out This Is Just the New Variants of Vaccines Another Cold?
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THE HUMMING UNIVERSE Do gravitational waves permeate all of space-time? BEYOND LITHIUM Batteries you can make from common salt GENETIC EXCLUSION The diversity issue undermining medicine WEEKLY 23 January 2021 No3318 Australia $9.50 (Inc. GST) New Zealand NZ$9.50 (Inc. GST) Print Post Approved 100007877 COVID-19 THE EVOLVING VIRUS Everything you What it means How long before need to know about for the roll-out this is just the new variants of vaccines another cold? PARENTAL BURNOUT Why it’s time to take it seriously PLUS SAVING THE NORTHERN WHITE RHINO / UNSWATTABLE FLIES / BIN BAG SMELL / HOW TO SPOT A LIAR / OLDEST ANIMAL PAINTING News, ideas and innovation www.newscientist.com 210123_R_Cov_EvolvingVirus.indd 66 19/1/21 23:04 The leader Time to adapt As the coronavirus mutates, we will need to adjust our approach to it JUST one month ago, the world Now the virus has picked up need for tweaks to vaccines or new was already struggling to contain mutations that allow it to spread treatments (see page 10). the spread of the coronavirus. more easily and, in some cases, The news of these new variants has Now the challenge has become that could help it evade our coincided closely with the widespread even harder. The emergence of new immune system (see page 8). and very welcome roll-out of vaccines variants with different properties has A faster-spreading virus leads against covid-19. These vaccines offer changed the rules of engagement. to more infections, as has been seen us a way out of the pandemic, but we That the coronavirus should evolve already knew it would be a long road isn’t surprising – this is what viruses “ A virus that can evade our to vaccinating almost the entire adult do. Scientists have been sequencing the immune system has the population of the globe. The recent genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus since it potential to reinfect people” evolution of the virus shows us just how began spreading out of Wuhan in China, long and complicated that road could be. recording the mutations that naturally in the UK and several other countries, As we try to work out how best accumulate as more and more people and thus, inevitably, to more deaths. to counter these variants, and what become infected and pass it on. An “escape mutant” virus that tweaks may need to be made to our This virus evolves mercifully slowly. can evade our immune response, vaccines, there is really only one Until recently, the genetic changes meanwhile, has the potential to reinfect thing we know for certain: the only we saw were of little consequence those who have already had covid-19. way to stop the virus from evolving to us, but that has begun to change. 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NZ New Scientist, PO Box 210051, Production New Scientist is published weekly by New Scientist Ltd, Laurence Stevens Drive, Manukau 2154 Production manager Joanne Keogh 25 Bedford Street, London WC2E 9ES, UK. ISSN 1032-1233. Robin Burton New Scientist (Online) ISSN 2059 5387. Registered as a newspaper. Printed in Australia by OVATO Print Pty Ltd, 31 Heathcote Road, Moorebank NSW 2170 23 January 2021 | New Scientist | 5 News Coronavirus Mutant variants The coronavirus evolves Several new viral variants pose added threats – how worried should we be? Graham Lawton THE rise and spread of new now circulating worldwide “We are now rolling out terrifying”, says Robertson. pressure. In May 2020, an Days later, Gupta’s team saw a variants of the coronavirus are carry this mutation. vaccination to high-risk groups “It is a concern that a large immunocompromised patient dramatic rise in a mutant version seen as ushering in a dangerous More recently, three other and this is going to provide a very number of spike mutations was admitted to a UK hospital with of the coronavirus and later new phase of the covid-19 mutants, known as the UK, South strong selection pressure,” says are found in the same strain,” covid-19. He died of the disease in confirmed that it had partially pandemic. But from the virus’s African and Brazilian variants, Emma Thomson at the University says Kumar. August. Over the 101-day course of escaped the therapeutic effects perspective, nothing has changed. have also started spreading of Glasgow. “We may well see a One potential danger that we his illness, a team led by Ravindra of the plasma. This mutant virus It is just doing what comes rapidly. All are also thought to rapid rise in mutations as a result.” can probably stop worrying about Gupta at the University of eventually killed the patient. naturally to viruses: evolving. have mutations that make them We will also have to keep an is recombination, which occurs Cambridge repeatedly sampled We mustn’t draw too many It is now well-established that more transmissible, and some eye out for viruses that can evade when two related coronaviruses and sequenced viruses from the conclusions from this single case, SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus with might be able to outsmart parts natural immunity, she says. mash their genomes together patient’s respiratory tract. says Gupta. The patient was also a large and unusually stable RNA Virologists have already to create a hybrid. Two studies being treated for cancer and “ We are rolling out vaccines genome, but that doesn’t mean discovered variants that are able scouring thousands of viral The virus strikes back couldn’t mount an effective it doesn’t change at all. Unlike to high-risk groups. We to partially evade antibodies. genomes have found no evidence immune response of his own. But most other RNA viruses, which are may well see a rapid rise These are a wake-up call. Even that this has occurred. The patient was given infusions the study shows how quickly and among the most mutation-prone in mutations as a result” though the UK variant, known as But escape mutation is a real of an antiviral therapy called viciously the virus can mutate and biological entities in the world, B.1.1.7, doesn’t seem to have an and present danger. A recent convalescent plasma – an escape under selection pressure. SARS-CoV-2’s genome changes of the immune system, although escape mutation, the fact that its case study highlights what antibody-rich blood extract The answer to these threats is very slowly. This is largely because they don’t seem to be more deadly. spike protein is 17 mutations away could happen once we put from another person infected surveillance, to flag up and isolate it has a proofreading function The sudden appearance of from the original is “a little bit the virus under heavy selection with the virus.