SARS-CoV-2 mutations do not appear to increase transmissibility.

[2greys]

The analysis of virus genomes from over 15,000 Covid-19 patients from 75 countries is published today as a pre-print on bioRxiv and has not yet been peer-reviewed.

The findings build on a peer-reviewed study published in Infection, Genetics and Evolution earlier this month that characterised patterns of diversity emerging in the genome of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus causing the ongoing pandemic of the Covid-19 disease.*

Lead author Professor Francois Balloux (UCL Genetics Institute) said: “As a growing number of mutations have been documented, scientists are rapidly trying to find out if any of them could make the virus more infectious or deadly, as it’s vital to understand such changes as early as possible.

“We employed a novel technique to determine whether viruses with the new mutation are actually transmitted at a higher rate, and found that none of the candidate mutations appear to be benefiting the virus.”

ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/may/sar...

Nature Communications. Research Paper:

nature.com/articles/s41467-...

[Badbessie]

Thank god is all I can add to the headline. My real worry over the last 6 month as been that it would mutate and become more transmissible or far worse like the 1918 virus more lethal. Thankfully it is a slow mutator which gave me some comfort. Sadly with the large amount of community infection the greater the risk of a chance mutation that would take hold and become a serious problem as always been a concern at the back of my mind. However by the look of this report that is not going to be the case.