Covid could be mutating to avoid immune response, new study suggests

Coronavirus: 'Prepare for another surge in winter' says Nabarro

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There have been multiple variants of COVID-19 since the first was detected in late-2019 and went viral in 2020. Over the past two and a half years the world has seen the Gamma, Delta, Beta, and Omicron variants all pass through populations.

Each of these variants has seen different mutations. However, what scientists are beginning to see is what is known as convergent mutations.

What are convergent mutations?

Convergent mutations are when different variants have the same mutations as other variants; this doesn’t make them the same variant, rather just two forms of the virus sharing the same features.

What is concerning about these convergences is that they are making the virus more effective at evading the body’s immune response; this means the virus is becoming harder for the body to fight.

Speaking to New Atlas about the convergent mutations, also present in different forms of the Omicron variant, expert Yunlong Cao said: “Seeing this convergent evolution pattern would mean that SARS-CoV-2 would evolve immune-evasive mutations much more frequently than before, and the resulting new variants would be much more immune-evasive.”

Molecular virologist Marc Johnson, also speaking to New Atlas, added: “What we think is happening is that there’s these patients that can’t clear the infection.

“And the virus, because there’s no bottlenecks from spreading from person to person, it just hits the evolutionary fast forward button.”

Why is this important?

COVID-19 mutating to be able to avoid the body’s immune response could put the world back to square one, when neither the immune system, nor scientists knew how to fight it.

At the moment, governments around the world are rolling out their booster programme to those eligible for the vaccine; these boosters include the new bivalent vaccines which are designed to combat both the original variant of COVID-19 and Omicron BA.1.

What is the latest variant of concern?

The latest variant of concern is Omicron BA.2.75.2. While this may sound like a flight number, the variant is taking off in the UK and other countries.

As well as a substantially transmissible variant; BA.2.75.2 is causing concern due to its immune escape properties. Scientist Eric Topol said on Twitter that the variant “was shown to be the most immune evasive variant seen to date”. However, Topol warned this has been surpassed by a new variant known only as XBB.

What is XBB?

XBB is a new variant of COVID-19 first detected in Cyprus. The variant is considered by some to be a “super strain” resulting from a coming together of two forms of Omicron.

So far the XBB variant has been found in Bangladesh, Israel, Singapore, Germany, and Denmark according to Doctor Raj Rajnarayanan. If XBB is as transmissible as other forms of Omicron it could cause a massive problem for health systems.

Why?

If neither vaccines nor the body’s immune system can protect people from XBB then more people will end up requiring hospital treatment which means more resources will be taken away from non-Covid care.

This comes at a time when health systems around the world are bracing themselves for a difficult winter when a Twindemic is set to hit.

What is a Twindemic?

A Twindemic is when two waves of disease hit at the same time; in this case the conditions health officials are concerned about are flu and COVID-19.

A massive wave of flu cases is expected to hit the NHS this winter due to low population immunity brought about as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Furthermore, a sixth wave of Covid is expected to begin this month ahead of the annual flu season; one which developed into an annual epidemic within the UK.

While flu doesn’t kill as many people as it used to, it is still a condition to be reckoned with and one which can require significant medical intervention.

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