• Question: How are there different variations of covid

    Asked by fate449mad on 9 Feb 2022.
    • Photo: Danielle Nader

      Danielle Nader answered on 9 Feb 2022:

      The virus that causes COVID is not very good at making the exact same version of itself because it does not proofread very well before it replicates. This means new viruses that emerge from the cell can be different than the virus that originally infected the cell in the first place! These are called mutations.

      Not all mutations are good for the virus- some actually reduce the virus ability to replicate, survive, or infect the host (these viruses don’t make it very far). Some mutations increase the virus fitness, meaning it is a better version of itself. If this virus keeps spreading and infecting, it will eventually become the dominant strain, and that is what a variant of concern is.

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