The world sat back and relaxed, after China nailed the virus in a matter of months. The West slumbered, as citizens spread their COVID with scarce a thought for tomorrow. Many expected a miracle vaccine cure within months, that would see the disease off forever. Now our scientists are asking did we underestimate the power of this virus.
Yes We Did Underestimate the Power of the Virus
The Washington Post says we underestimated the speed with which the coronavirus evolves, and dodges disease-fighting antibodies. In truth, most experts hardly gave a thought to how this might happen, at first. Crunch time came when United Kingdom, Brazil and South Africa each spawned their own variants, loose cannons in the battle.
A few months later, and we now know each variant has its own family of mutations, and the tale is far from over. Mass vaccination has become a scramble after what could be become an improbable goal. Herd immunity is losing its attraction as a silver bullet just out of reach of a continually evolving virus.
Is SARS-CoV-2 Going to Be More Like Influenza?
Influenza kills around 400,000 people annually, despite the best efforts of science. That’s because the virus keeps evolving, changing, mutating. Dr. Jesse Bloom uses computational biology and real-world data to build evolutionary models at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research.
We have to come to terms with the fact SARS-CoV-2 is an evolutionary virus, he told Washington Post. We underestimated the power of this virus, and the need to constantly update our vaccines. ‘However, I think that a year from now it’s going to be much less of a problem,’ he added thoughtfully.
Dr. Jesse Bloom and his colleagues are peering into the future, to predict likely scenarios so we can be better prepared. Scientists suspect the rate of evolution will eventually slow. The questions to ask are when, and what to do now?
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Preview Image: The Evolution of Influenza
