THE ESSENTIAL
- In seven days, the number of new cases increased by 60%.
- As of May 16, 33.9% of French people continued to systematically wear a mask in public places.
For several weeks, many European countries have been facing an increase in Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations. This is the case of France, which recorded 124,724 contaminations as of June 29. This resurgence of the epidemic is caused by the spread of the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. A question then arises: what does the next few months have in store for us? Agustín Portela, a scientist who works at the Spanish Medicines Agency, considered three different scenarios regarding the evolution of the virus.
The coronavirus continues to mutate
Asked by The worldhe said the most likely scenario was for Covid-19 to continue to mutate. “The virus surprises us with its plasticity to accumulate mutations and remain viable. But as long as there are neutralizing antibody titers in vaccinated people, there may be widespread circulation of the virus but not an increase in cases. serious (hospitalization, intensive care, death)”, he developed.
“The virus could infect other cells”
Another scenario “more complex” : the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 develops the ability to bind to a new receptor different from ACE2. “It’s very unlikely, but if it happens there could be a change in tropism, the virus could infect other cells.” According to Agustín Portela, in this case there could be some protection against the severity of the disease.
“A change of tropism and disease”
According to the Spanish scientist, another of the membrane proteins could bind to the receptor of human cells. He hopes that this third scenario “will not happen”. “It’s very, very, very unlikely, they’re very small proteins, but if that were to happen, we could also have a change in tropism and disease. In that case, there would be some protection against gravity. thanks to antibodies that recognize other proteins of the virus in people who have been infected. And those who have only been vaccinated could have a problem because they would never have seen this protein”, poursuivi Agustín Portela.