Vietnam Finds New ‘Hybrid’ Covid-19 Coronavirus Variant, What This Really Means

Just keep mutating. Just keep mutating. That what the Covid-19 coronavirus is gonna do. And over time that’s gonna keep resulting in more and more versions of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2), otherwise known as variants.

Case in point, the country of Vietnam appears to have found yet another Covid-19 coronavirus variant. Writing for The Guardian, Agence France-Presse quoted Nguyen Thanh Long, Vietnam’s Health Minister, as saying, “We have discovered a new hybrid variant from the Indian and the UK strains.”

The word “hybrid” may conjure up images of the B.1.1.7 variant (first found in the U.K.) and the B.1.617.2 variant (first found in India) finding each other on Tinder, swiping right with their spike proteins, and then meeting up in a seedy motel. There they may put on Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” while spiking their protein so to speak, resulting in little love child viruses, right? Uh, not exactly.

Instead, as Thu Anh reported for the VNExpress International, this new SARS-CoV2 variant has a change, a Y144 deletion on its spike protein, that’s similar to what’s been found with the B.1.1.7 and B.1.617.2 variants. Both the B.1.1.7 and B.1.617.2 variants seem to be more transmissible than the original version of the virus that first led to the pandemic. Therefore, it’s not surprising that this new variant is probably more transmissible as well.

“The characteristic of this strain is that it spreads quickly in the air,” the Health Minister was reported as saying. “The concentration of virus in the throat fluid increases rapidly and spreads very strongly to the surrounding environment.”

Spreads quickly in the air? Holy, Batman, that sounds like, well, ummm, just like the every other version of the Covid-19 coronavirus that we’ve seen since early 2020. So this new variant may not be that radically different from what’s currently circulating. It’s not as if this new variant can now post on Instagram, do cartwheels, and carry double-barreled shotguns. Therefore, there is no need to panic. Panic is never the answer, unless the question is, “what should you never do?”

This news is actually not surprising at all. The SARS-CoV2 has a high mutation rate. This means that the Covid-19 coronavirus is like a person eating a hot dog and Nutella while operating a photocopying machine. Whenever the virus makes copies of itself, it can often make mistakes. This can leave resulting viruses with slightly different genetic material or mutations. While many of these mutations may not change the virus significantly and others may actually make the virus weaker, some may give the virus a “fitness advantage.” A fitness advantage is when the resulting virus is stronger or can spread more efficiently than other versions. This then allowed the new variant to spread faster and further and soon overtake the other versions. Mutations are why new variants of Covid-19 coronavirus will continue to emerge over time.

Nevertheless, it is important to further study and track this new variant that has emerged in Vietnam. It is also a reminder that as long as the virus is spreading widely we cannot relax in this continuing war with the virus. Acting as if the pandemic were over now would be like Tom Brady or Lebron walking off the field or court at the start of the third quarter of the championship. Until public health officials actually say that the pandemic is over and no longer a public health emergency, our society has to remain vigilant and continue to maintain available Covid-19 precautions wherever needed.

For most of the pandemic, Vietnam has been able to keep the Covid-19 coronavirus relatively under control. They certainly did a better job than the U.S. did in 2020, which is a bit like saying a film is better than the 2003 movie Gigli. However, as the following CNA news segment shows, over the past few weeks, Vietnam has experienced a surge in cases:

It’s not clear yet whether this new variant is responsible for this recent surge.

The big yet-to-be-answered question is how effective the existing Covid-19 vaccines will be against this new variant found in Vietnam. If the currently available Covid-19 vaccines have high effectiveness against this new variant, then its emergence simply reinforces the need to get more people vaccinated as soon as possible and for those unvaccinated to keep social distancing and wearing face masks. However, at some point, a new Covid-19 coronavirus variant could emerge that can more readily get through the vaccine’s protection, necessitating the need for a new version of the vaccine.

Again, the SARS-CoV2 is gonna keep mutating, because that’s what it does. Getting a coronavirus to stop mutating would be like getting a narcissist to stop talking about himself. Mutations are likely what gave the virus the ability to jump from other animals to humans in the first place. And it will continue to give the virus the ability to change and adapt to new conditions and our precautions against the virus. After all, that’s what the virus is trying to do: just keep spreading, just keep spreading.

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