Covid is evolving – but the UK is not doing enough to evolve with it | Sheena Cruickshank

More resilient variants are emerging. Yet monitoring and testing have slowed, and access to vital drugs is patchyIt may feel like we should all be done with Covid-19, but sadly Covid-19 is not done with us. At the moment, cases in England are rising again, with a 10% rise overall in hospital admissions and thegreatest increase in the north of England. With testing reduced, national monitoring paused, the ONS infection surveypaused since spring and only recently relaunched, we have much less data about Covid than we ever had before. We know Covid hasn ’t stopped evolving, and we have a good idea about what sort of situations might result in new and dangerous mutations, but with less surveillance of emerging variants and spread, we are losing what used to be a near real-time picture of the situation.This makes it harder to know which variants are driving the increase in cases. The latest estimates suggest there is a soup, with several variants, including some derived from XBB, which emerged last year, as well as EG5.1 (Eris) and a small amount of BA.2.86 (Pirola), both of which were identified in the past few months. It seems as though this virus is ever-changing, and as a reflection of that, new data released in the last few days shows that the so-called Pirola variant has evolved again – andcould be more immune-evasive than the XBB-derived variants.Sheena Cruickshank is an immunologist and professor in biomedical sciences and public engagement at the University of Manches...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Coronavirus Infectious diseases Medical research Microbiology Science Vaccines and immunisation Health Society UK news Source Type: news