Speaker 1: Welcome pro prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. Today's main story. Researchers
Speaker 1: in the UK are leading efforts to track how COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen mutates. Following the evolution of the virus is critical
Speaker 1: in controlling the pandemic. Scientists trying to keep tabs on
Speaker 1: those mutations are in a race against time. But first,
Speaker 1: here's what happened in Virus News today. One year after
Speaker 1: Italy first shutdown to contain the spread of COVID nineteen,
Speaker 1: the country is preparing to enter a new lockdown. Prime
Speaker 1: Minister Mario Droggi, who came to power just last month,
Speaker 1: has promised to triple the pace of vaccination, but the
Speaker 1: specter of fresh restrictions is a particularly unwelcome form of
Speaker 1: deja vu for many in the country. The World Health
Speaker 1: Organization said immunizations with the astra Zenica vaccine should continue,
Speaker 1: even after at least ten nations suspended its use. The
Speaker 1: vaccination halts come amid concerns that the vaccine leads to
Speaker 1: an increased risk of blood clots. An expert group is
Speaker 1: assessing the reports of clots in some people who had
Speaker 1: received doses of the inoculation. Finally, Michigan said it would
Speaker 1: begin vaccinating all people sixteen years and older starting April five.
Speaker 1: The accelerated timetable was released as Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced
Speaker 1: that a mass vaccination site capable of administering six thousand
Speaker 1: doses a day would open March at Ford Field in Detroit.
Speaker 1: And now for today's main story. Fast moving variants of
Speaker 1: the coronavirus seen in England, South Africa and Brazil have
Speaker 1: sparked concern around the world. Researchers worry some may diminish
Speaker 1: the potency of existing vaccines and complicate efforts to escape
Speaker 1: the pandemic. As COVID nineteen cases started to climb in
Speaker 1: early British scientists decided to track the evolution of the pathogen, and,
Speaker 1: as health reporter James Peyton reports, this project gives the
Speaker 1: country and others the chance to respond quickly if alarming
Speaker 1: changes arise. The plan for the group, known as the
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen Genomics UK Consortium, came together about a year ago,
Speaker 1: but Nick Loman, a professor at the University of Birmingham,
Speaker 1: says not everyone was convinced, and as the virus traveled
Speaker 1: around the world in the ensuing months, the genetic changes
Speaker 1: seemed insignificant, but then actually people thought it was a
Speaker 1: bit of a waste time, partly because there was very
Speaker 1: little genetic diversity, like all the genems are very very similar.
Speaker 1: There was an element of you're doing a very expensive
Speaker 1: stamp collecting here, you know, while there's a pandemic going on.
Speaker 1: The scientists went on with the project just in case.
Speaker 1: Mutations arise naturally all the time. While the vast majority
Speaker 1: are innocuous, sometimes they make viruses more or less infectious.
Speaker 1: They can even increase their power to kill. For example,
Speaker 1: the flu virus that caused the pandemic, it's thought to
Speaker 1: have undergone a mutation in the middle of the outbreak
Speaker 1: that made it more leafal Today, the hope is that
Speaker 1: rapidly analyzing the genetic material of the virus on a
Speaker 1: large scale can help determine whether new versions of the
Speaker 1: pathogen are becoming more dangerous. Researchers crucially wants to see
Speaker 1: if these mutations might be able to evade or outrun
Speaker 1: vaccines developed by companies such as five Maderna and Astra Zeneca.
Speaker 1: Evidence that variants could pose a problem was already mounting
Speaker 1: last year, but A turning point came in early December.
Speaker 1: Scientists in the UK were studying a surge of cases
Speaker 1: in southeast England and noticed something highly unusual. Changes in
Speaker 1: the virus stuck out like a long branch from the
Speaker 1: rest of the data in the family tree. Loman calls
Speaker 1: it an evolutionary burst. The variant, later called B one,
Speaker 1: was found to have more than twenty mutations. One of
Speaker 1: the great things about having this UK data set is
Speaker 1: that we can be pretty sure and not missing things,
Speaker 1: you know, and not missing large fractions of the population
Speaker 1: with infections because we have such dense sampling. So the
Speaker 1: question for the for that is what happened there? Why
Speaker 1: do we get suddenly a burst of twenty mutations that
Speaker 1: are kind of seemingly came out of nowhere. Further examination
Speaker 1: showed version of the virus was likely to be much
Speaker 1: more transmissible. It also appeared to be on the move,
Speaker 1: fanning out across the country. Six days before Christmas, Prime
Speaker 1: Minister Boris Johnson delivered a solemn address to the nation.
Speaker 1: He warned of a new and fast spreading variant. Standing
Speaker 1: behind the podium displaying symbols for hands, face and space.
Speaker 1: The UK's campaign to fight COVID. Johnson outlined a plan
Speaker 1: to impose tougher restrictions movements and travel in the speech
Speaker 1: broadcast on networks like the BBC. He also pointed to
Speaker 1: the UK's genomics team. When the science changes, we must
Speaker 1: change our response. When the virus changes its method of attack,
Speaker 1: we must change our method of defense. And as your
Speaker 1: Prime Minister, I sincerely believe there is no alternative open
Speaker 1: to me. Without action, the evidence suggests that infections would saw,
Speaker 1: hospitals would become overwhelmed, and many thousands more would lose
Speaker 1: their lives. Since then, the work carried out by the
Speaker 1: British organization has intensified. Today it's analyzing about thirty thousand
Speaker 1: samples a week, triple the level of just a couple
Speaker 1: of months ago. It's also more than twice the activities
Speaker 1: seen in the US, even after Centers for Disease Control
Speaker 1: and Prevention head Rochelle Wallinski stepped on the accelerator. The
Speaker 1: Biden administration meanwhile announced nearly two hundred million dollars in
Speaker 1: funding to track variants. Sharon Peacock is director of the
Speaker 1: UK Consortium. She and her colleagues planned to expand training
Speaker 1: around the world for technicians, policymakers and others, while also
Speaker 1: strengthening partnerships with similar operations. She worries some countries will
Speaker 1: get left behind that would put them at a disadvantage
Speaker 1: in detecting mutations that might undermine immunization campaigns, not just
Speaker 1: in those regions but everywhere. So we're reaching a point
Speaker 1: in the pandemic where it's possible that we have a
Speaker 1: divided world where some parts of the world have ready
Speaker 1: access to vaccines and also genome sequencing, and so that
Speaker 1: they compare the information up for the two and get
Speaker 1: the most effective vaccine roller that they can in other
Speaker 1: parts of the world where there's limited vaccine availability but
Speaker 1: also very limited almost no sequencing available, and so they're
Speaker 1: they're working without knowledge of what variates are occurring in
Speaker 1: that country. Nowhere is safe until we know exactly what's
Speaker 1: happening across the world and everyone is protected, and that
Speaker 1: means genome sequencing. The World Health Organization has been vigilant
Speaker 1: over the past year. It's working with countries to bolster detection,
Speaker 1: shipping samples to labs, and providing supplies, guidance and funds. Still,
Speaker 1: Loman says the global approach is patchy and wealth isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily a prerequisite. The Democratic Republic of Congo has a
Speaker 1: good monitoring system, driven by its work in combating ebola.
Speaker 1: Others do not. The system works best if everyone is
Speaker 1: equipped to share genetic data, track emerging variants, and take action.
Speaker 1: We want as many eyes on this as possible. Is
Speaker 1: actually a relatively small number of people that do this work,
Speaker 1: and so you know, we really want everyone that knows
Speaker 1: me of ourgy and knows immunology, knows genomics to be
Speaker 1: to be looking at this data all the time to
Speaker 1: kind of spot the next the next emergence of something interesting.
Speaker 1: The UK organization shares its information through a global database.
Speaker 1: Almost half of that coronavirus data has come from Peacock's group.
Speaker 1: But massive genome sequencing alone isn't enough. Jeremy far Our
Speaker 1: is director of UK based research foundation Welcome. He met
Speaker 1: with the British scientists a year ago in London to
Speaker 1: discuss their plan. He says the analysis must be connected
Speaker 1: to broader public health and disease tracking efforts, the whole
Speaker 1: issue of genomic surveillance, so we can track these variants today,
Speaker 1: tomorrow and for in fact, for years to come. It's
Speaker 1: going to be absolutely critical. Um that needs to go
Speaker 1: on at a global level. It needs and this is
Speaker 1: really important. I think it needs to be locally owned.
Speaker 1: This has to be convened, coordinated at a global level.
Speaker 1: The data needs to be shared and it but it
Speaker 1: also needs to be shared equitably. A year later, scientists
Speaker 1: are wrestling with a different set of uncertainties. While developers
Speaker 1: are optimistic they can keep pace with the virus and
Speaker 1: tweak their shots quickly if necessary, the future is unclear.
Speaker 1: The possibility the world will need coronavirus vaccines at regular intervals,
Speaker 1: just like flu shots that require annual reformulation books increasingly
Speaker 1: likely peacocks. As researchers. Understanding of the viruses increased considerably
Speaker 1: since the crisis erupted, but there's still a lot to
Speaker 1: learn in the next phase of the pandemic. She sees
Speaker 1: a few different potential scenarios for how the virus evolves
Speaker 1: from here. Are we going to see a plateau in
Speaker 1: that so we know what we're dealing with. Oh, a
Speaker 1: better situation where us really involves out of kind of
Speaker 1: fitness and becomes less fit, so it becomes more like
Speaker 1: the common cold. The worst case scenario is that the
Speaker 1: virus actually has more in store for us, and that
Speaker 1: it becomes it could cause more serious disease. And we
Speaker 1: don't know the trajectory of the virus at the moment.
Speaker 1: The coming minds are going to be critical. Health officials
Speaker 1: in the UK have detected ten cases of a concerning
Speaker 1: variants that originated in Brazil and more twists and turns
Speaker 1: are seen as inevitable. Peacock points to a couple of
Speaker 1: mutations when in South Africa that have shown the ability
Speaker 1: to diminish, though not overcome, the power of vaccines. The
Speaker 1: risk of vaccines at the moment I believe to be low,
Speaker 1: and the key is to get the vaccines that we
Speaker 1: have at the moment rolled up as fast as possible
Speaker 1: to as many people as possible. That gives us the
Speaker 1: best chance of really controlling COVID nineteen cases in the world,
Speaker 1: and that's the best way of reducing variance arising because
Speaker 1: they don't have the opportunity to go through an infections
Speaker 1: side flin therefore developed mutivations. The stakes are high for Britain.
Speaker 1: The UK Project and the country's efforts to secure and
Speaker 1: roll out vaccines have been bright spots for a country
Speaker 1: that has faltered in other ways. Britain has the highest
Speaker 1: death toll in Europe and has faced intense scrutiny for
Speaker 1: what critics see is a string of missteps earlier in
Speaker 1: the pandemic. Now Prime Minister Johnson has declared that an
Speaker 1: end to the crisis is in sight. He plans to
Speaker 1: ease lockdown rules, keeping a close eye of mutations will
Speaker 1: remain an important part of the strategy. Countries like the
Speaker 1: UK will need that surveillance, not just in this crisis,
Speaker 1: but the next one as well. And and and that
Speaker 1: was James Payton. And that's it for our show today.
Speaker 1: For coverage of the outbreak from one bureaus around the world,
Speaker 1: visit Bloomberg dot com Flash Coronavirus and if you like
Speaker 1: the show, please leave us a review at a rating
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Speaker 1: help more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis podcast
Speaker 1: is produced by Tophur Foreheads, Magnus Henrickson and me Laura Carlson.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to John Lawerman. Original music by Leo Sidrin.
Speaker 1: Our editors are Rick Shine and Francesco Levi. Francesco Levi
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg's head of podcasts, Thanks for listening.