Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico have found out that a mutated new strain of the novel COVID-19 is more contagious than the original form of the virus. The Los Alamos National laboratory is the same place where the atomic bomb was invented with the code name ‘Manhattan Project’.
The study, which has yet to be approved, looked at 14 mutations in the ‘spike protein’, which the nCov2 uses to mediate the infection of human cells and is therein targeted by most attempted vaccines for the virus. Of those mutations, one was unique, according to the study, for spreading much more aggressively than the original strain of the virus.
This mutated virus was first identified in Europe, after which it spread to the rest of the world. The report claimed that people who catch this strain are at an increased risk of catching the illness a second time. The authors felt that an early warning was necessary so that vaccines and drugs that are in development should be effective against the mutated strain.
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