Name: The Science Behind Why New Covid Variants Are Spreading Faster | WSJ
Uploaded: 2021-05-30T13:41:18.000Z
Duration: 7 min 2 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

It's what gives the coronavirus its unmistakable look

Modal verbs - B1

and scientists think it may be the key to why new variants

of the virus are becoming more transmissible.

- A new study by the CDC is raising the alarm

on the coronavirus variant spreading across the country.

first found in the UK is now evolving in a way

that could make existing vaccines less effective.

that the more transmissible variant from the UK,

called B117, will likely become the most common version

- The big concern is that, with more transmissible variant,

you have more cases and you have more chance

for superspreading events and epidemic surges

behind why these new variants are spreading faster

Like other viruses, when the coronavirus replicates,

small genetic mistakes, or mutations, can occur.

circulating in the community, there will be the evolution

of mutants because that's what viruses do.

Some of those actually confer a survival benefit

for the virus to transmit more effectively, for instance.

- [Reporter] Abraar Karan is a global health physician

who has been studying the coronavirus pandemic.

it has a better chance of spreading to new hosts

and continuing to replicate in those hosts.

- [Reporter] Karan says this is likely what is happening

with the new, more transmissible variants

of these new versions of the virus have mutations

Take a look at this model of the coronavirus.

is made up of three identical parts known as protomers.

These protomers have the ability to change their position

from closed to open, affecting how easily

The three of them have to bind to the receptors.

- [Reporter] Jeremy Luban is a virologist

He explains that when the protomers are down,

But when these parts are up and open, it's much easier.

these protomers usually had a closed shape,

which may have made it less transmissible

than some more recent versions of the virus.

that helps to show where these mutations occur.

It appears in this region of the spike protein.

This mutation made it more likely for the spike

to have an open shape, increasing the virus' ability

- So by June, pretty much all the viruses around the planet

Our belief is that it supplanted the original virus

- [Reporter] Luban thinks this is what is happening

that are emerging around the world as well.

that variant really expanded very rapidly.

and now it's the dominant version of the virus

Does indeed appear as if the same thing happened

that affects the spike protein is antibodies.

against the coronavirus by blocking the ability

Antibodies are produced by the immune system

scientists are worried about all have mutations

Here are some that scientists are focusing on.

The first is called N501Y, which was first detected

in the variants from the UK and South Africa

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The Science Behind Why New Covid Variants Are Spreading Faster | WSJ

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recognize

epidemic

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