Coronavirus: What We Know About The AY.4.2 Mutation – Knowledge

Great Britain is one of the world’s pioneers in monitoring coronavirus variants. This is how the message came from the country that is now making some experts sit up and take notice. Recently, a sub-form of the delta variant has spread in England, announced the newly established UK Health Security Agency in its latest report. Accordingly, the sub-variant called AY.4.2 was last found in around six percent of the samples examined – and the trend is rising.

However, not much is known about this AY.4.2. The subtype combines two mutations in the spiked protein of the virus that have been known for a long time – and which have so far not attracted attention due to their worrying properties. “Neither of the two mutations is a priori an obvious candidate for increased viral transmission,” says Francois Balloux, Director of the Institute of Genetics at University College London: “But we have learned that mutations can have different, sometimes unexpected effects in different strains . “

According to the geneticist, the increasing prevalence of AY.4.2 suggests that it is about ten percent more contagious than the currently circulating Delta variant. That is not a gigantic increase. In addition, it is still quite rare in England at the moment. With that, she is likely to have caused only a small number of additional infections, says Balloux:So the recent surge in the number of cases in the UK is not due to that. “

Other British scientists do not see the new mutant as a driver of the increasing number of infections on the island. Julian Tang, virologist at the University of Leicester, cites the reasons for the lifting of all Covid measures, the schools in which many unvaccinated children come together every day and the decreasing immunity of those who were the first to receive the vaccinations.

AY.4.2 has also been found in other countries, such as the USA, Russia and Germany. In this country, the sub-variant has been discovered about 280 times since the beginning of July, announced the Robert Koch Institute. So far, their share in all samples examined has been a maximum of 0.5 percent.

Israel reacted with particular alarm. The new Covid variant was first discovered there in the middle of this week – in an eleven-year-old boy who had returned from Moldova. There are now five known cases. In order to immediately demonstrate the vigilance of the government, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called a group of health experts for an emergency meeting on Wednesday evening. This was followed by the initially vague announcement of “quick measures” in order to preserve the previous successes in the fight against the virus.

The new concern hits the country at a time when the government had just given the all-clear after months of high infection rates and had promised an early end to this fourth wave of corona. On Thursday, Prime Minister Bennett gave his approval to the long-debated plan to allow the entry of foreign tourists for vaccinated and convalescents, which had been banned since March 2020, again from November 1st. This still has to be finally approved by the entire cabinet. However, reports suggest that entry from countries where an AY 4.2 outbreak is reported could continue to be banned.

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