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A12 science
Thursday 31 december 2020

EXPLAINER: Scientists trying to understand new virus variant

strains and moves faster sponse are under way, Van immune system to make
and infects more people, Kerkhove said. antibodies to the virus, so
so it wins the race,” Land- One drugmaker, Eli Lilly, they are expected to still
rigan said. said that tests in its lab sug- work, several scientists said.
The British variant was first gest that its drug remains Q: WHAT CAN I DO TO RE-
detected in September, fully active. DUCE MY RISK?
WHO officials said. A new Q: WHAT ABOUT VAC- A: Follow the advice to
South African variant also CINES? wear a mask, wash your
has emerged. A: Scientists believe current hands often, maintain so-
Q: WHAT’S WORRISOME vaccines will still be effec- cial distance and avoid
ABOUT THE BRITISH VARI- tive against the variant, but crowds, public health ex-
ANT? they are working to confirm perts say.
A: It has many mutations that. On Wednesday, Brit- “The bottom line is we need
— nearly two dozen — and ish officials reiterated that to suppress transmission” of
eight are on the spike pro- there is no data suggesting the coronavirus, said the
In this Dec. 1, 2020, file photo, people wait their turn to be called tein that the virus uses to the new variant hurts the WHO’s director-general,
for a PCR test for the COVID-19 outside a hospital in Barcelona, attach to and infect cells. effectiveness of the avail- Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghe-
Spain. The spike is what vaccines able vaccines. breyesus.
Associated Press and antibody drugs target. Vaccines induce broad “The more we allow it to

Does it spread more easily? “It’s the change of one or Dr. Ravi Gupta, a virus ex- immune system responses spread, the more muta-
Make people sicker? Mean two letters in the genetic al- pert at the University of besides just prompting the tions will happen.”q
that treatments and vac- phabet that doesn’t make Cambridge in England,
cines won’t work? Ques- much difference in the said modeling studies sug-
tions are multiplying as fast ability to cause disease,” gest it may be up to two
as new variants of the coro- said Dr. Philip Landrigan, a times more infectious than
navirus, especially the one former Centers for Disease the version that’s been
moving through England Control and Prevention sci- most common in England
and now popping up in the entist who directs a global so far. He and other re-
U.S. and other countries. health program at Boston searchers posted a report
Scientists say there is rea- College. of it on a website scientists
son for concern and more A more concerning situa- use to quickly share de-
to learn but that the new tion is when a virus mutates velopments, but it has not
variants should not cause by changing the proteins been formally reviewed or
alarm. on its surface to help it es- published in a journal.
Worry has been growing cape from drugs or the Q: DOES IT MAKE PEOPLE
since before Christmas, immune system, or if it ac- SICKER OR MORE LIKELY TO
when Britain’s prime min- quires a lot of changes that DIE?
ister said the coronavirus make it very different from A: “There’s no indication
variant seemed to spread previous versions. that either of those is true, This photo taken in Aug. 2020 shows the carcass of a woolly
more easily than earlier Q: HOW DOES ONE VARI- but clearly those are two is- rhino, taken in Yakutia.
ones and was moving rap- ANT BECOME DOMINANT? sues we’ve got to watch,” Associated Press
idly through England. On A: That can happen if one Landrigan said. As more Well-preserved Ice Age woolly
Tuesday, Colorado health variant takes hold and patients get infected with
know fairly soon if the new rhino found in Siberia
officials said they had starts spreading in an area, the new variant, “they’ll
found it there. or because “super spread-
Here are some questions er” events helped it be- strain makes people sick- MOSCOW (AP) — A well- Recent years have seen
and answers on what’s come established. er.” preserved Ice Age woolly major discoveries of mam-
known about the virus so It also can happen if a mu- A WHO outbreak expert, rhino with many of its in- moths, woolly rhinos, Ice
far. tation gives a new variant Maria Van Kerkhove, said ternal organs still intact Age foal, and cave lion
Q: WHERE DID THIS NEW an advantage, such as that “the information that has been recovered from cubs as the permafrost
VARIANT COME FROM? helping it spread more eas- we have so far is that there permafrost in Russia’s ex- increasingly melts across
A: New variants have been ily than other ones that are isn’t a change” in the kind treme north. vast areas of Siberia be-
seen almost since the vi- circulating. of illness or its severity. Russian media reported cause of global warming.
rus was first detected in Scientists are still working Q: WHAT DO THE MUTA- Wednesday that the car- Yakutia 24 TV quoted
China nearly a year ago. to confirm whether the TIONS MEAN FOR TREAT- cass was revealed by Valery Plotnikov, a pale-
Viruses often mutate, or variant in England spreads MENTS? melting permafrost in Ya- ontologist with the region-
develop small changes, as more easily, but they are A: A couple of cases in kutia in August. Scientists al branch of the Russian
they reproduce and move finding some evidence England raise concern that are waiting for ice roads Academy of Sciences, as
through a population. that it does. The variant the mutations in some of in the Arctic region to be- saying the woolly rhino
Most changes are trivial. “out-competes the other the emerging new variants
could hurt the potency of come passable to deliver was likely 3- or 4-years-old
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