Fears of a more deadly Covid virus have been motivated in particular by the emergence of the Indian variant in recent months. Anecdotal evidence from India suggests that the new strain causes more illness in young people and is not as easy to treat. Scientists believe it is more contagious than previous forms of the Covid virus and is responsible for the huge increase in new infections that threaten to overwhelm the country’s medical system.
More than 200,000 new cases of Covid were recorded by Indian health authorities on Wednesday, while the UK reported a total of 77 infections in total.
Various experts have also described the new strain as having “characteristics of a very dangerous virus” and as a “variant of concern”.
However, Denis Kinane, co-founder and medical director of Cignpost Diagnostics Ltd, told Express.co.uk that the Covid virus is most likely to follow a similar trajectory to other coronaviruses, even though there was “blips” along the way.
The immunologist, whose company does PCR testing for big companies like the BBC, said: “The global pressure is going to be towards more transmissible, less virulent and less pathogenic – that’s the general trend.
“That doesn’t mean there won’t be bugs on the road.
“Even with the Spanish flu, we had a wave and then another wave that came back and hit us even more, so we get these changes in the variants.
He added: “The general trend is that it will become less (virulent) and this has been seen with coronaviruses in the past.
“It will be the general line if you wish. Whether you get blips and we get blips is another thing. ”
There are concerns that current vaccines may be less effective against emerging variants of Covid.
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Recent studies have shown that AstraZeneca’s vaccine is only 10.4% effective against mild to moderate infections caused by the South African variant.
Likewise, an Israeli study found that the South African variant may to some extent escape the protection provided by the Pfizer vaccine.
Mr Kinane, however, is convinced that current vaccines will be able to cope with the variants and that only a major mutation would change the outlook.
He said: “Most vaccines are well capable of treating whatever variant is going to come up.
“Being a variant that would actually bypass the (immune) system and it has been suggested that the South African variant is actually more able to bypass the immune system – but actually a whole new variant that will be even more effective at bypassing vaccinations, let’s say the South African variant – is going to have to change a lot. “
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The irony is that the more successful the vaccination campaigns, the more likely it is that new variants will emerge.
The co-founder of Cignpost Diagnostics Ltd explained: “One of the arguments and one of the discussions that you might have later on when we are much more protected by vaccines is whether, with this high level of immunization in the within the community, if we could be, let’s say, a spawning ground for new variations.
“This is probably because the typical evolutionary pressures will be on the virus to actually mutate so that it can survive despite the fact that a large part of the population has been vaccinated.
“There will be some pressure that way.”
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