[gattilorenz]

Not a virologist, infectivologist, etc.

My understanding is that this virus has a mutated spike protein, i.e. a different "outside shell". This spike protein is what gives the virus its ability to attach to human cells, and also what most vaccines "expose" to your immune system to teach it how to recognize COVID-19.

The difference in this variant's spike protein might have effect, among other things, on the ability of the immune system of a person that has been vaccinated to recognize the virus, so there's potential for a much decreased response/efficacy of the vaccines. However this is pure speculation at this point.

Update: earlier this year it aws speculated that the beta mutation might have increased infectivity and/or the ability to better elude the immune response; that variant eventually died out, and delta is now the prevalent one. It might be a similar case, but it's hard to tell yet, and it's of course better to err on the side of caution.

[Mountain_Skies]

Given the low level of vaccination in the region, I have to wonder if the mutations are in response to something else in the environment rather than the virus working around vaccination induced immunity. That area has extraordinarily high rates of HIV. Is it possible that the virus has mutated to be better able to infect those with HIV too? I'm not a virologist either so the HIV question might be naïve but looking for differences in that environment compared to other parts of the world seems worthwhile.

[datenhorst]

I believe the theory is that since this variant has so many mutations, it evolved over quite some time within a single host with a lowered immune response. Makes sense that this would happen in an area with high HIV prevalence.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

It's interesting that SA has a pretty small population (compared to the world) and has produced 2 out of 8 (?) concerning variants.

It would be a small chance for this to be completely random.

South Africa has ~3M reported cases (~1.2% of global) and ~60M people (~.7% of global).

[SketchySeaBeast]

Chiming in as a 3rd level of uneducated layman, but isn't one of the defining features of HIV that it makes it easier for other infections? I'm not sure what adaptation would be required there.

[angelzen]

Common wisdom is that immunocompromised individuals, which are unable to battle off the virus and suffer the infection for long periods of time, are fertile grounds for variants evolution.

"Rapid viral evolution has been described in immunosuppressed patients with persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection. Choi et al. described an immunosuppressed patient with antiphospholipid syndrome who was hospitalized in August 2020 and treated with anticoagulants, glucocorticoids, cyclophosphamide, intermittent rituximab, and eculizumab.2 During 152 days of persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection in this patient, the investigators identified 31 substitutions and three deletions in genome sequences. Twelve spike mutations were found, including seven in a segment of the receptor-binding domain consisting of 24 amino acids, some at sites linked to immune evasion (478, 484, and 493).6,7 The patient eventually died of severe Covid-19–related pneumonia. "

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsb2104756

[SketchySeaBeast]

Yeah, that makes much more sense than a mutation to better infect those with HIVE.