As countries and cities around the world are starting to ease their coronavirus lockdowns and quarantines, a new and now-dominant COVID-19 strain has been discovered and is believed to be "more contagious" than the first version that has spread throughout the world.
New COVID-19 Strain Found
According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, the researchers believe that the new coronavirus strain first appeared in Europe in February, with Italy one of the first countries seeing a new strain, which then quickly migrated to the US, starting from the East Coast.
By mid-March, the strain has become the most dominant strain in the world, based on a research study led by the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The researchers think this new strain may be more contagious than the original COVID-19 strain, which was already highly-infectious, which is why millions of people have already been affected in many different countries around the world.
If their theory is right, a worse wave might hit the world and could cause more cases and even deaths globally.
In addition, the researchers warned that this mutant novel coronavirus might make people more at risk of getting re-infected with the disease.
Perhaps even more alarming is that the mutation affects the protein spikes of the SARS-CoV-2 virus on its surface, which it then uses to hijack healthy cells of the body through ACE2 receptors found in the cells.
The virus also uses its spikes to get into the cell and replicate, and because of that, the strain was named Spike D614G.
Researchers Send Urgent Warning
The study is now published at biorxiv, which is a website wherein different researchers publish their studies and reports to have it peer-reviewed, so that means the study is yet to be reviewed, but the group wants to speed up collaborations with their fellow researchers, especially those who are working on COVID-19 vaccines and cures.
The current research regarding vaccines and cures were mainly based on the genetic sequence of the original and earlier strains of the virus, so it may not work on the new ones.
Authors of the study feel like they need to send out an "urgent" warning to ensure that any treatments and vaccines that are being developed nowadays will be effective even against this more contagious strain and any other mutations that the virus may develop.
"We cannot afford to be blindsided as we move vaccines and antibodies into clinical testing," Bette Korber, lead researcher and author of the study, said.
However, Korber guaranteed the public that experts are working together in many different ways to fight off the coronavirus pandemic and defeat it for good.
The Spread of the Mutant Coronavirus
The Los Alamos National Laboratory research team analyzed around 6,000 coronavirus sequences that can be found around the world.
According to Mirror, they have found 14 new COVID-19 strains, but Spike D614G was the most dominant, and it happened quite fast since the original strain around mid-March hit new York, but after a few days, the mutant virus quickly took over.
As of now, there are already more than 3.6 million confirmed coronavirus cases around the world, with more than 255,000 deaths and around 1.2 million recoveries.
