We might finally have some answers.
 | By Nathaniel Lash Graphics Reporter, Opinion |
My first assignment for The New York Times (I was hired just after lockdowns began in March 2020) was a piece on the many unknowns of how the coronavirus might evolve. A key question we sought to answer was how much the coronavirus could change to "escape" the immunity we might eventually gain through vaccines or fighting off infection. Back then, scientists could see some troubling signs, but it was hard to tell what they would mean down the line. |
Then came the Alpha variant. Soon after, the Gamma variant. And let's certainly not forget the Delta variant. Now, as Europe and Asia are experiencing a rapidly spreading subvariant of Omicron — BA.2 — we might finally have some answers. |
In a piece this week, Sarah Cobey, Jesse Bloom and Tyler Starr, three experts on virus evolution, write about how they expect the coronavirus to change going forward. Is Omicron the last surge-causing variant we'll see, or does the virus have more in store? |
"There's no reason, at least biologically, that the virus won't continue to evolve," they write. |
Buried in there is some good and bad news. The good news: The virus can't keep getting more contagious forever. As Cobey, Bloom and Starr explain, a cheetah is fast, but it won't evolve to become infinitely fast. Eventually, the pattern of a brand-new variant emerging every few months, twice as contagious as the last, will have to end. |
But the bad news is that variants are likely to keep coming for some time, because the virus is more than capable of evolving to escape the immunity we've acquired from earlier variants. Omicron has 15 distinctive mutations, many more than any prior variant, on a key part of the virus that allows it to latch on to human cells (the Delta variant had only two). This made the Omicron variant much more capable of infecting those who had already been vaccinated — or had been infected by another variant. And yet, these 15 changes are just a fraction of the possible mutations we now think are possible. |
 | | The New York Times |
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Fortunately, even if vaccines don't fully prevent people from getting infected with future variants, so far they've been effective against the most serious consequences of the virus. We also have experience with similar viruses, like the seasonal influenza. |
The experts' takeaway? "Updated or improved vaccines and other measures that slow transmission remain our best strategies for handling an uncertain evolutionary future." |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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