Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, January five. I'm Oscar Emiras from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: The new variant of the coronavirus that was found in
Speaker 1: the UK has now made its way into the US.
Speaker 1: The mutated virus is more transmissible, but not more severe,
Speaker 1: and has been found in Colorado, California, Florida, and most
Speaker 1: recently New York. People infected with the new variant are
Speaker 1: thought to have greater concentrations of the virus and their
Speaker 1: noses and throats. A poor Va Mondavilli reporter at The
Speaker 1: New York Times joins us for how COVID is spreading faster.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Apporva, thanks for having me. We
Speaker 1: are finding out a little bit more about this more
Speaker 1: contagious variant of the coronavirus that begun circulating in the UK.
Speaker 1: It's now in the United States, in Colorado, California, Florida,
Speaker 1: and we just heard that the first case was found
Speaker 1: in New York of this variant. Obviously this was coming
Speaker 1: from the UK. They're imposing very strict lockdown rules because
Speaker 1: of this, probably the most stricts since the whole pandemic
Speaker 1: first began, So this new variant is becoming the predominant
Speaker 1: form it already has in England, and they think that
Speaker 1: will soon happen here in the United States as well.
Speaker 1: So apt to help us walk through what we're learning
Speaker 1: about this, why is this new variant more contagious? Let
Speaker 1: me take a step back and say that there are
Speaker 1: a lot of variants of this virus, and that's natural.
Speaker 1: Any virus always picks up new mutations along the way.
Speaker 1: What's concerning about this one is that it seems to
Speaker 1: have picked up mutations one or more that make it
Speaker 1: more transmissible. It spreads much better between people than previous versions.
Speaker 1: So this is, you know, a huge worry because already
Speaker 1: the numbers in the United States and everywhere else are
Speaker 1: so horrible. The hospitals are already overflowing. And what we
Speaker 1: don't know is exactly how much more transmissible this is.
Speaker 1: There are some estimates, but we don't know exactly how
Speaker 1: it became more transmissible. We don't know exactly how much,
Speaker 1: but the numbers speak for themselves. Everywhere it has shown up,
Speaker 1: the number of people infected has shot up really fast.
Speaker 1: The early estimates said that it was maybe about more
Speaker 1: transmissible others saying that could be about fifty but you're right,
Speaker 1: we still have to kind of let it play out
Speaker 1: unfortunately a little bit to see exactly where that goes.
Speaker 1: One of the good things is that we're seeing is
Speaker 1: that we don't think that it is any causes any
Speaker 1: more severe complications. You know, people don't get any sicker
Speaker 1: per se, but there will be more deaths just by
Speaker 1: the fact that it is more transmissible. There's gonna be
Speaker 1: more people getting sick and more people at risk of
Speaker 1: worse symptoms. Yeah, and it's not just COVID, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: there will definitely be more people who get sick from COVID,
Speaker 1: more people who die from COVID, just because there are
Speaker 1: more people getting infected, but also as hospitals continue to
Speaker 1: stay overwhelmed and probably for much longer because of this
Speaker 1: new variant, a lot of people who need care for
Speaker 1: other things like cancer and diabetes and heart disease and
Speaker 1: everything else, all of those people will all have to
Speaker 1: wait for care and who knows how much damage we'll see,
Speaker 1: you know, with those diseases. So some of the preliminary
Speaker 1: evidence from Britain says that this new variant could infect
Speaker 1: cells with greater efficiency, There could be more viral load
Speaker 1: in people's noses and throats. It may not travel all
Speaker 1: the way to the lungs, but if it stays in
Speaker 1: the nose and throat, you know, when people are talking, sneezing, coughing,
Speaker 1: all that, that's what makes it a little more transmissible.
Speaker 1: You know, this is one of the possible things that
Speaker 1: they're looking at. Right. It's a theory at this point still,
Speaker 1: but it's one possible explanation for why you might be
Speaker 1: seeing that people are more contagious but not getting sicker.
Speaker 1: And as you pointed out, that could be because they
Speaker 1: have more virus in their nose and throat, which makes
Speaker 1: them more contagious, but it's not getting into their lungs,
Speaker 1: so they're not getting as sick. But you know, we
Speaker 1: don't know this for sure yet. There are some studies
Speaker 1: that have shown there's some evidence that people who get
Speaker 1: this variant um as opposed to other ones have a
Speaker 1: higher viraul load, but we still need to see more
Speaker 1: data on that. Yeah, one of the doctors that you
Speaker 1: spoke to put it pretty accurately. It seems like currently
Speaker 1: risky activities become more risky with this new variant, and
Speaker 1: that's why we're seeing lockdowns in the UK, we're seeing
Speaker 1: more talk about other modified lockdowns in the United States,
Speaker 1: because they're just trying to shut it down as best
Speaker 1: they could. And it proves the point really that you know,
Speaker 1: you should still continue the social distancing, the mask wearing,
Speaker 1: all the precautions we've been hearing to avoid these risky
Speaker 1: behaviors in every other way that doesn't have to do
Speaker 1: with that greater transmissibility. This variant is behaving exactly like
Speaker 1: the previous versions, So it's all the same precautionary measures
Speaker 1: that we already know work. Wearing a mask, washing our hands,
Speaker 1: making sure that the rooms are well ventilated, or that
Speaker 1: we're only interacting outdoors. All of those things will still help,
Speaker 1: but we'll need to follow those things much more strictly,
Speaker 1: much more rigorously than we have been, And that's kind
Speaker 1: of a depressing thought. And also you wonder how well
Speaker 1: will we do that people are already unwilling to follow
Speaker 1: those guidelines and are sick of the pandemic. How open
Speaker 1: will they be to even stricter guidelines and lockdowns given
Speaker 1: where we are as a country. Yeah, that's definitely going
Speaker 1: to be a tough fight. I wanted to return back
Speaker 1: to the mutations that we were talking about the very beginning.
Speaker 1: We know all viruses mutate as they go along. This
Speaker 1: variant that has popped up right now has twenty three mutations.
Speaker 1: They say, seventeen of those appeared very suddenly. But just
Speaker 1: talk about how this process plays out and what we're
Speaker 1: finding out about this variant. Yeah, I mean, as you
Speaker 1: pointed out, there are twenty three mutations compared to the
Speaker 1: original strain in Wuhan, the original variant, but since then,
Speaker 1: you know, it's picked up a lot of mutations. As
Speaker 1: I mentioned, there are a lot of different variants. The
Speaker 1: thing that's really strange about this one is how many
Speaker 1: it has compared to the most recent version of it,
Speaker 1: and eight of those are in a part of the
Speaker 1: virus that all of the vaccines are designed against. So
Speaker 1: that's a little bit of a concern, and one of
Speaker 1: one set of mutations in particular, has been shown now
Speaker 1: to actually decrease how well the virus response to the
Speaker 1: immune response created by the vaccines. It's not that the
Speaker 1: vaccines won't work, but they will be a little bit
Speaker 1: less effective. And so the worry now is that if
Speaker 1: you have this variant spreading among people really fast. Every
Speaker 1: single person that infects is an opportunity for it to
Speaker 1: collect more mutations, and if it collects even more mutations
Speaker 1: that make the vaccines even less effective, that's going to
Speaker 1: be a problem. Well, one year into this whole thing,
Speaker 1: the coronavirus continues, the pandemic continues to move very fast,
Speaker 1: so we'll have to keep monitoring how this variant changes things,
Speaker 1: if anything. A Porva Mondavelli, reporter at the New York Times,
Speaker 1: thank you very much for joining us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm ascar Emiras and this has been opening America. Don't
Speaker 1: forget the effort today's big news stories. You can check
Speaker 1: me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday.
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