Louisiana’s top medical official, Joseph Kanter, emphasized that while the COVID-19 vaccines are effective against the delta strain, that may not be the case with other variants. That message is being delivered in some hard-hit states as well. “That’s the best way to protect against the development of these variants.” “Now is the time for people to get vaccinated,” Assistant Secretary of Health Rachel Levine told Washington Post Live on Friday. and around the world as the best way to reduce the risk of more harmful variants from developing. Officials and experts widely view immediate vaccinations in the U.S. Another four strains are labeled as variants of interest, which could possibly benefit the virus. The World Health Organization has classified four strains as variants of concern that give the virus an advantage: the alpha, beta, gamma and delta variants. “Until we make sure that the virus can’t freely replicate in the population anywhere in the world, we’re always going to have that increased likelihood of mutations occurring,” he said. It’s “incredibly difficult to predict” when these mutations will occur, Pekosz said, adding that the opportunities for alterations increase in areas where the virus can spread easily. Most changes do not help or inhibit the virus’s ability to spread, but “very, very infrequently” its genetic material alters to give it the upper hand, he said. In the process, that material sometimes mutates from the original strain.Īndrew Pekosz, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the virus mutates randomly but at a steady rate. When COVID-19 spreads, the virus replicates its genetic material to infect more cells. “But the big concern is that the next variant that might emerge, just a few mutations potentially away, could potentially evade our vaccines,” she added. “These vaccines operate really well in protecting us from severe disease and death.” “Right now, fortunately, we are not there,” Walensky said. In announcing the new mask guidance this week, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky addressed the anxiety among public health experts over whether potential mutations might be able to bypass existing COVID-19 vaccines. And they warn that the highly transmissible delta variant, which came from mutations, could seem tame in comparison to future strains. Such a large number of people without even one vaccine dose gives the virus more chances to spread, replicate and potentially develop mutations.Įxperts say that while mutations are not a certainty, the odds will remain high unless more vaccines are administered. vaccination rate has largely plateaued and with much of the world still unvaccinated. to date, and only 14 identified in the past two weeks.The rapid spread of the delta variant is raising concerns among scientists that the coronavirus could mutate into more transmissible or deadlier strains. One prominent database shows only 914 Lambda variant cases in the U.S. Delta made those leaps even though it didn’t register on the state’s April tally. That’s nearly a fivefold increase from the 2,142 instances of Delta identified as of July 14, which was a sevenfold increase over 286 Delta-related cases found on June 9. The state posted an updated list of variants sequenced to date on Friday which did not include numbers for Lambda, but noted “this is not a complete list of sequences completed to date.” It did, however, indicate that sequences of the Delta variant had risen to 10,507. Only 152 Lambda infections were identified, the first possibly as early as 2020, according to CalMatters citing state public health officials. As of August 11th 99,260 samples have been sequenced in California. California analyzes a considerably higher number of tests than its largest county - though in July it scrutinized only 5% of all Covid cases identified. Los Angeles only genomically sequences a small number of positive test samples every week which are flagged by medical experts as possible variants of interest or concern.īut even statewide, the number of Lambda variants seems to be very small.
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