Slow mutation is good news for vaccine hunt
A team of scientists studying the coronavirus’ genetic code has found no evidence that the virus is mutating significantly as it spreads through the human population. If confirmed, this relative stability is good news on two fronts: It means that the pathogen is unlikely to grow more deadly and that the search for a vaccine will be simpler. Viruses evolve over time, accumulating mutations as they replicate imperfectly inside a host’s cells and spread through the population. Natural selection allows some of these mutations to stick around. But the coronavirus appears to have a low “error rate”—it looks more or less identical wherever it has appeared. There are no more than 10 genetic differences between the strains that have infected people in the U.S. and the original virus that emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan, notes Peter Thielen, a molecular geneticist at Johns Hopkins. “That’s a relatively small number of mutations for having passed through a large number of people,” he tells The Washington Post. The mutation rate suggests that “the vaccine developed for [the coronavirus] would be a single vaccine, rather than a new vaccine every year like the flu vaccine.” Any shot could potentially last a lifetime, much like vaccines for measles or chicken pox. Scientists are working on several vaccines for the coronavirus, but it will be at least a year to 18 months before one is ready.