That's a lot of mutations

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Knish
Posts: 231
Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2020 5:20 am

That's a lot of mutations

Post by Knish »

17min and 16 sec into a research panel's Q&A vid: https://youtu.be/NKI__VxMaFo?t=1036

wasn't sars cov2 supposed to have an 'error checking' transcriptase? or is this still comparatively few vs other virus mutations?
JimF
Posts: 652
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2010 2:03 pm

Re: That's a lot of mutations

Post by JimF »

It has error checking. But it also has a way of swapping out one genetic sequence for another, both of which have been error checked.
So the new mutation passes the error check too.

It is very smart.
Jonazz
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Re: That's a lot of mutations

Post by Jonazz »

Also: the more people who get infected, the bigger the odds of a new dangerous mutation.
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Re: That's a lot of mutations

Post by Joe_H »

Yes, large numbers of infected increases the number of mutations. Even if the error checking is 99.9999% or better at catching a change and blocking it, with hundreds of millions infected and whatever large number of the virus get created in each person, some changes are inevitable. Of those some will be viable and capable of replacing the original variant and spreading.
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