The new subspecies of coronavirus AY.4.2, cases of infection with which were recorded in Russia, has a high chance of becoming the dominant strain, displacing the “delta” and other varieties of COVID-19, the head of the laboratory of the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences Konstantin Severinov said on the air of Komsomolskaya Pravda Radio.
According to him, mutations of viruses are a natural process in which the particles most adapted to survival displace those that are less adapted.
This was the case with the delta strain, which proved to be more infectious than others and therefore quickly became the dominant strain in the world. Now a similar situation can happen with AY.4.2, Severinov said.
“With this new subspecies, the situation seems to be such that it actually increases its frequency, which means it displaces the delta. This may mean nothing, or it may mean that it is more adapted,” the geneticist stated. anything, but most likely it is simply infectious. The more infectious the virus, the more people it will infect per unit of time. This means that its frequency will increase over time relative to another, less infectious virus. “
The expert clarified that in the future there will be many more variants of the virus, since their mutations are “an absolutely standard process.”
As the site kp.ru previously wrote, isolated cases of a new subspecies AY.4.2 strain of the “delta” coronavirus were detected in Russia, Kamil Khafizov, head of the scientific group for the development of new methods for diagnosing human diseases at the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology of the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare, told reporters.
