Sai Reddy, an immunologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, warned that people “must prepare for a new variant of the Covid-19 virus that emerges next year and may pose a huge risk.” He is worried that the existing Delta, Beta, and Gamma variants will combine to form a stronger virus and become a new variant virus called Covid-22, which may be more deadly than Delta virus, making the epidemic worse than it is currently seen.
Sai Reddy said: “If this variant strain does appear, we must identify it as soon as possible, and vaccine manufacturers must quickly adjust their vaccines. The emergence of this new variant strain is a huge risk, and we must prepare for it.”
Sai Reddy said that he called the Delta mutant “Covid-21”, but Delta may not have the “escape mutation” feature that helps it escape the immune system, but some mutants such as Beta have this feature, which may be Reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine. He said that the combination of genetic characteristics of these mutants will either make the virus more deadly, or make it easier to spread or escape the immune system. This will be a problem in the near future.
