when most people heard the term variants
and mutants
they quickly started thinking in x-men
etc i think it led to a lot of people
having almost fatalistic thoughts about
the whole process which is we're headed
for
disaster but the truth is viruses mutate
all the time
often it doesn't matter about these
rogue changes because
it doesn't change the way the virus
behaves but every once in a while we
will
have one that's a little bit stronger
and that could cause havoc
if sage scientists or a professor
express some sort of worry
about a particular variant then we call
it a variant of concern
variant of concern variance of concern
you're probably wondering why all this
matters
there's no mistake here when a virus
gets inside a host
and begins to infect cells it makes
copies of itself so it can spread
like dominoes thousands of copies are
made at a time
hence the term going viral right and so
virus has to replicate very quickly and
the pressure to replicate quickly
means that you can make mistakes these
errors are genetic mutations
over time these genetic mutations can
lead to other changes
most of these gentle changes do nothing
sometimes they can even be to the
disadvantage of the virus
but sometimes they alter the way the
virus behaves making it
easier for it to survive key thing is
the longer a virus is out there
spreading from person to person
the more variants you're going to get in
case the worst happens
scientists are looking at tweaking
vaccines to make sure they continue to
offer
high protection against covert 19 but
doing that takes time
and what we do know for sure is that the
more a virus is allowed to go on the
warpath
the more likely it is that a variant
will spike up which stops vaccines from
working
but we have control over that in many
ways washing hands wearing masks
practicing physical distancing as much
as possible but also
getting our immunization
you