It is highly unlikely that a new subspecies of coronavirus will emerge that will differ in pathogenicity, not contagiousness. Andrey Pozdnyakov, an infectious disease doctor, chief doctor of the clinical diagnostic laboratory of INVITRO-Siberia LLC, told socialbites.ca about this.
According to the doctor, all existing variants of the coronavirus come from the omicron strain, because unlike its predecessors, it was the one that spread the fastest. That is, each sub-variant of omicron will be slightly more contagious than the previous one.
“Viruses compete fiercely with each other, and each subspecies that has one kind of advantage excludes the other. All types of covid are becoming more contagious on the rise. And they mutate precisely to penetrate the human body in the best possible way and not cease to exist. for the virus this is a vital requirement. But pathogenicity is not vital for the virus, so you should not expect an increase in pathogenicity. Mutations will only go in terms of infectiousness, but it is impossible to 100% exclude the possibility of the emergence of some very infectious pathogenic strains, but it is very unlikely, “he explained disease specialist.
For comparison, the flu may have a new mutation to which humans are most susceptible, but the coronavirus does not yet have such variants.
“The flu still has an inexhaustible source of new mutations – that’s because it has an animal-shaped reservoir,” said Doctor Pozdnyakov.
Earlier, it was known that four cases of infection with a new strain of COVID-19 “Arctur” have appeared in Russia. After that Rospotrebnadzor accepted An increase in the incidence of a sub-variant of the Arcturus coronavirus in May.