More details needed about new strains of COVID-19

New lineages of the virus responsible for COVID-19 have led to travel bans and concerns over increased transmissibility, but experts say it’s unclear whether the latest strains are more potent than previous versions.

One strain has appeared to dominate infections in the U.K. over the last month while another new lineage has been spreading in South Africa. Both countries are experiencing high rates of transmission recently, and an epidemiologist in the U.K. suggested mutations on the new strand could be making the virus 70 per cent more infectious.

Health Canada said on Sunday there’s nothing suggesting at this point that the new mutations have any effect on symptom severity, antibody response or vaccine efficacy.

Dr. Gerald Evans, an infectious disease expert with Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., agrees, saying we need more evidence before determining potential impacts.

“If it pans out that, yes, it is more transmissible, then that’s relevant and gosh, we’re going to have to address this,” Evans said.

“What we’re getting is a lot of people scared because they’re hearing about mutant viruses... I’m just frustrated because I need to see (evidence).”

Evans said it would make sense to see a new strain appearing more frequently in areas where rates of community transmission are already “exploding.”

But that could be more due to peoples’ behaviour than a change in the virus itself, he said.

Jason Kindrachuk, a virologist with the University of Manitoba, says the rate at which we’re seeing the new strain in the U.K. seems to suggest there’s more going on than just relaxed restrictions and behavioural patterns, though.

And while he agrees more research is needed before we can glean the significance of the mutations, that’s going to take time.

“We’re in this difficult period where something interesting has shown up, but now we have to try and biologically validate what that means,” he said. “And that’s not necessarily easy to do in real time as a virus is spreading.

“But we need to actually do these experiments and see: can we demonstrate there’s an advantage in those new strains compared to other variants we’ve seen for SARS-CoV-2? And there will be massive mental focus on this in laboratories across the world over the next few weeks.”

Genomic sequencing of the virus has shown the U.K. strand has already spread to other countries, but Health Canada said Sunday there have been no recorded cases of the new strain here.