We won't only see variations like Omicron. The next one, will it be bad?

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Experts think it's not out of the question that a new, potentially dangerous version will surface this year.

Is there another "variant of concern" on the way in 2022? The new year has arrived with an omicron wave, but will this be the last?

This year, experts told Live Science that they aren't surprised to see a new coronavirus variety emerge. However, it is challenging to predict how quickly that variant would spread, how well it would escape the human immune system, or if it would cause more severe sickness than earlier coronaviruses.

Both its fast transmission rate and ability to bypass immune systems in those who have been vaccinated or previously infected give the omicron variation an advantage over the Delta. A virologist and professor of microbiology and immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City told Live Science that this has allowed the variation to infect a portion of the population that Delta can't readily infect. According to Chandran, future strains of concern would have to improve their transmissibility and immunological evasiveness in order to compete with Omicron.

"There is no evidence that the virus has exhausted its genetic resources," he stated. According to " I think that we're going to see more variants and similar forms of wave-like activity, there will be an increase in infection rates following the introduction of a new variant."

In contrast, virulence (the severity of the disease caused by the virus) is still unknown for the next issue variation, which may be able to circumvent the immune system.

Are there any ideas for the next iteration of concern?

"It is expected that new variations will develop," Karen Mossman, a professor of pathology and molecular medicine at McMaster University in Ontario, told Live Science in an email, given the present prevalence of coronavirus infection and the mutation rate of SARS-CoV-2. The epidemic has shown us that not every new variety would be able to take over in the long run, she said.

There are a number of ways in which future versions could gain a competitive advantage. Mossman believes that one of these possible paths could lead to a more transmissible virus than Omicron while producing less severe sickness.

"Viruses need to increase and infect new hosts to thrive. A virus that spreads swiftly without creating symptoms is known as a "silent killer." "In other words, the infected host is a convenient vector for distributing the bug to other computers, according to Mossman. "Viruses do not benefit from the death of their host before they may spread."

Live Science reported that Omicron is less likely to induce severe disease than previous variations. Because it develops more readily in the upper airways and is less effective in the lungs, this variety may be more easily transmitted, according to some theories. As a result of the virus's ability to travel between hosts, it appears that the virus has evolved to be less virulent.

Mossman cautioned, however, that no one can say with certainty if the next iteration of worry will make the same compromises. A combination of advantageous mutations can cause more severe diseases.

The virus may be more likely to cause a severe infection if it develops changes that allow it to multiply more quickly or avoid the antibodies that generally block it from entering cells. Unlike other coronavirus variations, Delta spread more quickly than any other while still tripling the risk of hospitalization for unprotected patients compared to alpha, according to the New York Times. Viral infections such as HIV and Ebola, which have been there for decades but have not improved in severity, are only two examples. Smallpox, before it was eradicated, was another.

While Chandran conceded that the virus might become less virulent over time, "absolutely not unrealistic" as a theoretical possibility, he concurred with Mossman that such an outcome is not guaranteed. According to the researcher, mutations in the genome of viruses can interact with one other and develop unanticipated properties as they replicate and gain mutations. This characteristic, known as epistasis, makes it impossible to anticipate the evolution and behaviour of future variations.

Big questions remain unanswered.

SARS-CoV-2 has physical and genetic restrictions that limit its ability to evolve, according to Chandran. ' Researchers predict the virus's ability to infect more people to level off and stop rising over time because of some of these limits, according to Nature.

When it comes to physical stability and instability, viruses must "walk a narrow path," according to Chandran, and this balancing act limits their potential to spread. To keep the genetic material secure in the body and the outside world, the virus must have a hard-to-break container that is strong enough. However, in order to infect cells, the virus's genetic material must be released from the box. According to Chandran, viruses can't open up and infect cells as efficiently if they are too stable; if they are too unstable, they won't survive long after being sneezed out.

There are only so many mutations the virus can collect before it starts to malfunction genetically.

The virus, for example, requires that its spike protein fit snuggly into a receptor on human cells in order to infect them. An antigen-reactive spike in Omicron has roughly 30 alterations, some of which aid in the microbe's resistance to the immune system. Nevertheless, Chandran thinks there is a limit to the number of mutations the spike can handle before it begins deteriorating.

There's a good chance that the virus still has some genetic wiggle room here. SARS-CoV-2 appears to be able to survive a huge number of escape mutations—those that allow the bug to evade antibodies—while still being able to infect human cells, according to a recent study published in Science on Dec. 2. As Harvard Medical School assistant professor of microbiology Dr Jonathan Abraham, an infectious disease specialist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, told The Harvard Gazette, "the great structural flexibility we saw in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein suggests that omicron is unlikely to be the end of the story for this virus."

SARS-development CoV-2s are uncertain because of other unknowns. As Chandran pointed out, it's unclear where the next strain of anxiety will come from, given that it may not be descended from the omicron lineage. Even though Delta was the prevalent coronavirus at the time, Omicron went from a separate family tree branch; the following variant may have a similar creation narrative.

The coronavirus's ability to infect animals is yet another wildcard.

Nature revealed that SARS-CoV-2 could infect a wide range of animals, including mink, ferrets, cats, white-tailed deer, and numerous primates. Some people worry that the virus could acquire mutations while circulating in animals, making it more contagious or deadly to humans or compromising the efficiency of our vaccines. For this scenario to play out, the coronavirus must return to humans after infecting an animal. Chandran noted that the virus may have mutated so much that it cannot return to humans. As he put it, "the virus's genetic trajectory may be extremely different in these other hosts."

As Live Science has documented, animal-to-human transmission has been reported on mink farms early in the pandemic. It's plausible that other species might also transmit the virus back to humans. Since animal reservoirs of the virus could be an issue in the future, scientists should keep an eye on the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in humans and animals going forward, Chandran added.

Making it less likely that a problem variation occurs

Do you have any suggestions on how we can lessen the likelihood of new issue variations arising?

"Reducing... the amount of available area for the virus to multiply is what we must do. And we'll accomplish this by vaccinating everyone. "Chandran stated this, as well. On Jan. 10, around 4.67 billion people throughout the world had gotten at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, leaving nearly 40 per cent of the world's population unprotected.

As with Omicron, vaccines may only partially protect against a future variation, but they are still likely to minimize the risk of infection and transmission. On the other hand, Chandran believes that immunization is most effective when used with different strategies such as masking, physical distance, and regular testing. He also pointed out that raising vaccination rates would reduce the burden on the healthcare system by reducing the incidence of serious illness.

Even while the omicron variant can avoid some vaccine-induced antibodies, other immune defences created by the vaccine nonetheless limit serious infections, according to early research released on Jan. 3 to the preprint database medRxiv (opens in new tab). An unpublished study demonstrates that the vaccines create "durable responses" from helper T cells, which activate the body's immune system when SARS-CoV-2 is detected, and killer T cells, which can kill contaminated tissue. Because they react to the delta and omicron variations, these T cells can recognize and destroy both virus forms. On the other hand, these T cells may be able to guard against future strains of concern.

"More infected or vaccinated people will build up higher levels of immunity, maybe against diverse varieties," Mossman said to Live Science. "The overall evolution of SARS-CoV-2 will likely drop, and the pandemic will become endemic as this broad level of immunity grows among communities and over the world."

This could be the end of the epidemic, but until then, we'll have to deal with new strains of worry.

Reference : https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-variants-after-omicron-2022

Image source : https://pixabay.com/id/photos/covid-19-coronavirus-epidemi-4982910/

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