Mutation makes new coronavirus spread 10 times faster? Experts say there is no direct relationship between the two

A few days ago, some media reported that Malaysian Health Ministry officials claimed that the new coronavirus d614g mutation strain may spread 10 times faster than the general strain. a stone stirs up thousand layer waves. Netizens have commented on the area to express their concern, and some people have left messages: “the spread is 10 times faster Give your children this vaccine not later than October… ” Is it true that spreads 10 times faster? Will d614g mutation make the vaccine that has been developed invalid? The reporter of science and technology daily contacted a number of experts, who said that they did not agree with the statement that “mutation makes the new coronavirus spread 10 times faster”. “the emergence of d614g mutation is not a new thing. According to the new coronavirus sequencing database we monitored, the mutation at this site appeared very early.” An expert in the field of bioinformatics data said that Malaysia had a d614g variant as early as March. the expert said that the existing information and data can not support the conclusion that d614g mutation makes the transmission speed 10 times faster. If the related research line G mutation is caused by a single factor, but there are other reasons that have not been paid attention to. “some opinions are unreliable and worth believing and commenting. There should be a criterion for judging whether an academic paper has been published or not.” The expert pointed out that the papers published by the journal not only have research methods and detailed data conclusions, but also have been peer reviewed and edited for more credibility. Novel coronavirus pneumonia, which is confirmed by the relevant media, was identified by the relevant

, which is supported by the relevant media, as “S’s protein changes in the new crown virus: D614G evidence for enhancing infectious force”. D614G mutation may be related to the higher viral load in patients with new crown pneumonia, but it is not related to the severity of the disease. This is rarely mentioned in media reports. in the above article, clinical and laboratory methods are used. One is based on the viral load of the patient. Here, a hypothesis is implied, that is, patients carry more viruses, and the infectivity is stronger, which is similar to that of a sack of rice scattered out and a small plastic bag of rice scattered, the former has a larger area; the other method is to verify at the cell level by The mutant strain was compared with the new coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, and the number of infected cells under the same virus titer was compared. for the first method, a newly published online article entitled “the significance of mutation: it is still unclear what the d614g mutation means for a pandemic” states: Although this hypothesis is reasonable, in reality, some transmission may occur in the early stage (virus cannot be detected), so high viral load may not be the transmission potential The direct reflection of force. for the second method, this paper considers that the influence of other viruses or host proteins and the interaction between human as a whole and pathogens are not considered. “it’s far fetched to extend from cells to people.” Li Kefeng, an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego Medical Center, told Science and Technology Daily that it was impossible to quantify the transmission power through cell level experiments. “It might be more credible if we use animal experiments.” Li Kefeng said that the conclusion of cell experiment is fast and we are eager to publish it, but the reliability of the conclusion will be greatly reduced. From another point of view, we can also judge that this conclusion is exaggerated: the R0 value of new coronavirus is about 3-4. If it spreads 10 times faster, it means that the R0 value will reach 30-40, which is almost nonexistent in the infectious diseases recognized by human beings. “the analysis of more than 80000 new coronavirus sequences shows that the number of d614g mutated viruses is about 80% Experts in the field of bioinformatics data mentioned above said that excluding some cases of sequencing but not publicly included, we can basically conclude that such mutations have become dominant. However, the summary of new coronavirus changes should be three-dimensional, not only focusing on the transmission speed. For example, researchers novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic data collected and analyzed in some countries, and concluded that some countries have a sharp increase in child infection rate and sharp decline in the number of severe cases. as to whether the d614g mutation will affect the efficacy of the vaccine, the experts explained that although the 614 site is on the S protein (which is considered to be the “key” for the virus to enter the human body), it is not on the vaccine target area of the s protein, which can be understood that it may be on the “key handle”. protein is a three-dimensional structure, and the change of a site may also lead to the adjustment of protein stereostructure, such as “collapse”, so the effect of variation still needs to be followed up. relevant researchers said that if the uploaded sequence could contain information such as whether the patient from which the sequence originated died, whether it was asymptomatic or mild, it would help researchers obtain more useful and closer to the real world analysis.