[divbzero]

Thanks for that Nature news feature, it summarized the research on SARS-CoV-2 mutations quite well.

We’ll have to watch for signs of selection pressure as more and more of us get vaccinated to recognize the spike protein. Hopefully SARS-CoV2 mutates too slowly to escape the vaccines, or can only escape with sharply reduced infectivity and virulence.

[pm90]

It’s mentioned in the nature article:

> Studies of common-cold coronaviruses, sampled across multiple seasons, have identified some signs of evolution in response to immunity. But the pace of change is slow, says Volker Thiel, an RNA virologist at the Institute of Virology and Immunology in Bern. “These strains remain constant, more or less.”

So there seems to be a pretty good chance that this won’t really be an issue.