In an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association on Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that the coronavirus could be mutating to become more infectious.
The latest data, Fauci disclosed in the AMA interview, is showing there is a single mutation making the disease capable of "replicating better and maybe have high viral loads," Tegna of Wusa9.com wrote.
Fauci said all viruses have a natural tendency to mutate but pointed out that scientists and doctors are currently in the phase of attempting to validate if the possible COVID-19 mutation is more highly spreadable.
Health experts have previously stated that a surge in the level of infectiousness does not suggest a rise in severity. The disease is not deadlier just because it can connect to cells more easily. It is simply more contagious, they said.
This may help shed some insight into the huge increases in coronavirus cases in Europe from a couple of months ago, and now, in the United States. The D614G version, which some scientists believe is the culprit for the rise in contagiousness, is the most dominant strain.
The National Cancer Institute defines '"new mutation" as a genetic anomaly that is present for the first time in one cluster member resulting from a mutation in a germ cell of one of the parents.
In simple terms, viruses naturally transform and can replicate, especially those of the RNA strain, like the flu, SARS, measles, and SARS-CoV-2, commonly referred to as the new coronavirus. RNA viruses are characterized by their collection of genetic material lumped inside a protein shell.
The news of a shift that will accelerate the spread of the disease around the globe comes as the number of cases continues to increase worldwide, with over 10.7 million people infected and 517,000 fatalities from the virus reported only six months ago.
The news also comes as the US breached a single-day record Thursday for new COVID-19 cases with over 53,000 infections in just 24 hours, data from Johns Hopkins University showed.
The remarkable increase marked a new daily case record for the second straight day after the country registered more than 52,000 new cases on Wednesday. Based on the latest monitoring, there were 53,069 new COVID-19 cases and 649 fatalities over the 24 hours to Thursday. As of Friday morning, the US total number of infections was pegged at 2,739,092, with 128,742 fatalities.
