A group of geneticists from the Austrian Institute of Science and Technology explained the emergence of new variants of COVID-19. The research is published in Scientific Reports.
Scientists have built an epidemiological model describing the dynamics of human infection with coronavirus. Experts have modeled scenarios in which new variants of COVID-19 appear or disappear without gaining a foothold in the population. According to the results of the work, it turned out that two factors affect the emergence of new strains: the number of vaccinated people and the threshold number of infected.
“Using parameters that realistically resemble the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, we simulate the waveform of a pandemic and examine the effect of vaccination rate and the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the likelihood of a resistant strain emerging. As expected, we found that a high vaccination rate reduced the likelihood of a resistant strain emerging, ”the study said.
However, the emergence of new options is influenced by compliance with restrictions in countries. According to experts, due to the different rates of vaccination, there is still a high risk of infection. And to prevent its spread, it is necessary to wear masks and gloves, to maintain social distance. Scientists concluded that without global coordination of actions to combat COVID-19, there may still be resistant variants of the coronavirus in the world.
Earlier, British scientists described a number of possible scenarios for the development of coronavirus mutations and said that a strain with a mortality rate of 35 percent could appear in the world. According to one version, due to the vaccination campaign, the coronavirus will become drug resistant. The mutation can arise on the basis of the South African variant of COVID-19 (“beta”), which quietly bypasses post-vaccination immunity, and the most infectious “alpha” (British strain) or “delta” (Indian strain).
