Well, the XBB1.5
is really interesting, because it's
the daughter of a mixture of different viruses
that have been circulating in humans in the last few months.
So it's actually what we call a recombinant.
And it's had another couple of mutations added on top of it.
And the reason it's interesting is because it's acquired a mutation
that both enhances its ability to avoid the immune system,
but also to latch on more tightly to ACE2, which is the receptor on our lung cells
and our cells in our nose and throat that allows infection.
The identification of XBB1.5 is complicated by the fact
that sequencing worldwide has dropped very, very markedly.
So it's really hard to know where this virus actually
emerged, in which country it was formed.
All we can say is that it was detected in a number of different countries
around the same period of time.
Well, I think that the the idea of transmissibility is something
that is dynamic.
It changes over time depending on what else is around.
And this one, this variant seems to be taking over from the previous ones.
And looking at the mutation profile, we can see why.
But I'm not necessarily worried about this because
of course this is what will happen in terms of the virus
and as long as we are well protected with vaccines,
then this shouldn't be a problem.
In 2022 we saw a new vaccine with with two different variants in.
And that has been shown recently to provide
very good protection from hospitalisation and severe disease.
So we believe that the the vaccines we're using are going
to be highly effective against severe disease,
as long as we are up to date on our boosters.
Well, I think that the XBB1.5
really is a good reminder that the virus is still changing.
It's still doing things to avoid our immune systems and vaccines,
and it's still doing things to make itself more transmissible.
And that's what you'd expect from an evolutionary process.
And it just reminds us that really we do need to keep on top of our
vaccination uptake, in other words, reaching vulnerable populations
such as the elderly and those who are immune suppressed,
as well as younger individuals with health conditions,
and also just remembering that that masking is a highly effective way
of preventing infection in crowded spaces and during winter,
I believe that we should be maintaining such practices as we go forward.
And these are practices that are very common in Eastern countries.
Well, we know now that new variants are generated in
individual people over periods of months and even years of evolution.
And these individuals usually have
an immune system that can't deal with and can't clear the infection.
So the the probability of that happening has markedly increased
with the number of infections happening in China,
where there are likely to be significant numbers of immune suppressed individuals.
So it's just increasing the probability that we're going to see new variants
emerging and spreading.
So that's the concern really with what's happening in China.
So the development of this pandemic has been very interesting.
We didn't realise that new variants were going to emerge
as quickly as they did because we didn't appreciate long term infections within
individuals leading to lots of mutations and new viruses.
We now know that's a reality and therefore
we are in a situation where new variants are continually replacing each other.
What's happened recently, though, is surprising because Omicron
was predicted to be just the next variant in the process.
But we haven't really seen a radically new one since November last year.
And that's interesting because it shows us that
Omicron has achieved a complex set of mutations
that have achieved a really high level goal.
They've achieved very high levels of transmissibility
and immune evasiveness, and it's going to be difficult
for a totally new virus to replicate or improve on that combination of mutations.
So we may be in a new chapter in the evolution of this virus.
I believe that coronavirus or SARS-CoV-2 is here to stay.
It may
become one of the seasonal coronaviruses over time,
it's difficult to tell, and whether we will need
ongoing vaccination is also another thing that we need to address.
It may become like influenza, where we do need yearly updates or updates
every few years because the virus is changing so much
that we don't want to become vulnerable to severe disease.