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Texas health experts discuss new coronavirus variant found in the UK

While experts say it's important to continue to keep an eye on new mutations or variants, they're confident the vaccines already out there will be effective.

AUSTIN, Texas — A new coronavirus strain has prompted several countries to enact temporary travel bans to and from the United Kingdom. According to ABC News, the variant was first detected in the U.K.

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced over the weekend that the country will be changing course and tightening up restrictions, just as the U.K. was loosening some restrictions for the holidays. 

"There is no evidence the variant causes more severe illness or higher mortality, but it does appear to be passed on significantly more easily," Johnson said Saturday. 

The U.S.'s top doctor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told CNN, "We don’t want to overreact."

Health experts, including those in Texas, say there is not enough evidence to determine the exact danger posed by the new strain.

What exactly is the variant?

Experts say to get a variant of a virus or any other type of genetic variant, there must be a mutation that occurs.

"And that mutation sometimes can be single, what we call single letter or single nucleotide, and that can result in a single amino acid change in the protein that the DNA is responsible for making. Or in this case, since it's an RNA virus, with a change in the RNA," Dr. James Musser, the chair of pathology and genomic medicine at Houston Methodist told KVUE Monday. "The important thing is, do any of those variants then result in a biologically or a medically different or more important virus? That's the key question."

What makes this particular strain concerning is that some of the mutations are on the spike protein, which the COVID-19 virus uses to attach to and infect cells. The spike protein is what Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines target. 

"We're going to want to monitor any changes very, very carefully that occur in that spike protein. So, it's especially important now because there's massive, what we call immune pressure being placed on the spike protein, not only here in the U.S. but in other countries that are starting to vaccinate," Dr. Musser said. 

He added that from extensive genome sequencing in Houston, doctors have sequenced more than 15,000 SARS-CoV-2 viruses since early March, and categorically, the variant does not exist among Houston Methodist hospital patients. 

"I always tell people, regardless of whether it's SARS-CoV-2 in this case or influenza or any other pathogen, very early on when something is observed, it's really important to not get too carried away with conjecture without the proof," Dr. Musser said. 

What about the vaccines?

Right now, two companies have received Emergency Use Authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for COVID-19 vaccines: Pfizer and Moderna

Both vaccines are considered "mRNA vaccines", which essentially trick the body into producing spike proteins that are found on the outside of coronavirus cells. Once the body forms those proteins, it triggers an immune response. So, for example, if you come into contact with COVID-19 later, you should already have the antibodies needed to fight it off.

But, as stated, experts say this new mutation is attached to the spike proteins. 

"The good news is our bodies mount a relatively robust and diverse immune response to the spike protein. So, there's no evidence yet that this new variant will somehow overcome our very robust immune response," said Ilya Finkelstein, an associate professor of molecular biosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. "Think of our immune response as a shotgun. We shoot a lot of pellets at the virus and by changing a few positions and the spike protein, the virus may evade a few of these bullets, but it won't evade all of them. So, I think we're still in pretty good shape when it comes to our first-generation vaccines."

Still, he said more research needs to be done on this strain. 

"And this will all come in due course. There's quite a few groups internationally who are tracking the changes in this virus and the spike protein," Finkelstein said. "We and others are continuing to monitor the prevalence of various changes in the spike protein in the virus in general. I work with clinicians in Houston who track this with us, and we try to understand what these mean. To my knowledge, we haven't seen this yet in Houston."

Finkelstein later clarified via email that they have not seen the strain in the Houston area as of November. 

"And frankly, we just don't know yet whether this is a cause for alarm, but my gut feeling, seeing all these spike mutations over time, is that we're OK and our front line therapeutics will be OK and our frontline vaccines will be OK," Finkelstein said. 

So, is there cause for concern? 

Finkelstein said as of right now, SARS-CoV-2 is the most surveilled virus in history, which gives him optimism that if the public continues their safety measures, there shouldn't be a drastic need for worry. 

"We now have ultrasensitive measurements of how the virus is changing on a day-by-day basis. This allows scientists to follow the virus with such granularity that we may see things we've never seen in other viruses – that probably happens all the time in different viral infections, but we just now have the tools to measure it, too," Finkelstein said. "There's an intense public interest that is driving reactions faster than we can generate answers. Because everybody's edgy, everybody sees the light at the end of the tunnel with the vaccinations already starting and everybody's worried about losing that edge over the virus. But there are dedicated people who are going to be very, very busy this holiday season, including my own laboratory, trying to answer the question of what is the significance of this virus, this new viral strain."

Dr. Musser agrees that more lines of data are needed to come to a final conclusion about the new strain. 

"I think that should we keep our eye on it, absolutely. Should we panic? Should we close down things that are not already closed down? I don't think so. Here in the U.S. or in Texas, I think we need to carefully monitor the situation. 'We' meaning the U.S. We need to very carefully and extensively sample the genome sequences as an early warning system," Dr. Musser said. 

WATCH: Texas to receive 620,000 vaccine doses in second week of distribution

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