Editor's Pick: With new virus variant, is it back to square one?

(The Editor's Pick is a new newsletter from The Hindu that provides a snapshot of the most important stories from today's edition of our newspaper, along with a note from our top editors on why we chose to give prominence to these stories.)

Indian and global markets took a deep plunge on Monday after reports of a new strain of the coronavirus in the U.K solidified over the weekend. Meanwhile, several nations have suspended flights from and to the U.K., with India doing so till December 31.

The mutant virus is causing alarm as preliminary findings in the U.K. indicate that it is 70% more transmissible than the original. Named VUI-202012/01, the variant's 23 mutations are an unusually high number, leading to the assumption that it originated in a single patient who fostered the virus for a long time. A key mutation that has been identified is to the spike protein, allowing it to link to human cells more easily and hence transmit faster. There are no indications yet that the new variant increases the intensity of COVID-19 or is more fatal.

Yesterday's global market rout follows an upswing after the vaccines against COVID-19 had hit the market. The market response as well as the travel ban are throwbacks to the early days of the pandemic and raise apprehensions of more lockdowns. Scientists, however, say that the current vaccines could be just as effective against the new variant. Vaccines generate antibodies that target multiple points on the virus. Experts do not think the virus has reached a stage of 'vaccine escape', when the mutations are so many that the vaccines are no longer effective. In this context, the market reaction can be seen as premature and the travel ban as precautionary.

What the variant does show is that the virus is continuously changing. While many other variations had been identified earlier, this is by far the most different. This raises the possibility of 'vaccine escape' and of the science and society going back to square one. This is what makes the story important.

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