Mutaties op Covid-19

quote:

Concerns of mutations often center around whether the pathogen will mutate to become more virulent or aggressive. There is no reason to suspect that this particular virus will undergo mutations that cause such effects. In fact, mutations could reduce the virulence of this virus. We do not know at this point which direction this could go. As far as immunity and therapeutics, mutations of viruses are always a concern when developing vaccines and therapeutics. Thus far, SARS-CoV-2 has not demonstrated high ‘mutability’. But it also has not been placed under population ‘pressures’ that would force it into mutating in order to ‘escape’ from population immunity or circumvent therapeutics. So at the moment, we will keep sequencing viruses that are obtained from individuals in order to monitor these questions - but these are not major sources of concern at the moment.

-Michael Mina, MD, PhD / bron