© Darius A. Irani, 2021
The historical behavior of Pathogens should have left little doubt that COVID-19 would mutate into either a more virulent or more fatal version. Now that the more virulent COVID-20 (if you will) mutations have emerged, we need to look ahead and guess at what 2021 might yield. There is a very real possibility that a new variant will emerge that is resistant to the current vaccinations.
COVID-19 has been evolving almost since its emergence one year ago. This is normal behavior for all living organisms, and up to recently these variations were minor and did not raise any red flags. Suddenly, in September it evolved in the UK into something more virulent. It could be just a coincidence that the Oxford group had started their Phase II/III trials two months earlier by involving over 12,000 participants. Alternatively, it is possible that the virus sensed the noose closing around it and took the first step necessary for it to survive. The virus wants to live, the vaccine is designed to strangle it. Survival depends on evolving into a strain resistant to the vaccine. Can a resistant strain emerge? Sadly, it can. Most known viruses are constantly mutating. Whether COVID-19 will evolve into such a resistant strain is the big uncertainty. Neither the virus nor humans have any control over its future direction. Evolution is a consequence of random mutations.
A vital characteristic of all living organisms is the ability to reproduce. If they can’t, they don’t just die, they becomes extinct. Whether by design or accident, the biological engine of reproduction is not perfect. Over large numbers of copies, mutations creep in. Some changes are good for the organism and become part of its future state, others are fatal and kill it. What is inescapable is that change will occur. Equally inescapable is the random nature of the change. This is true at the simplest level of individual cells and the most complex level of human embryos. The astounding variety of life on our planet is testament to this random imperfection, and in fact depends on it.
Because of the random nature of the mutations, for the virus survival becomes a numbers game. Any host has the potential to produce the necessary mutation. The larger the number of hosts, the greater the probability that one of them will be successful. The easiest way to generate more hosts is to become more virulent. Ergo, the far more contagious strains that have started emerging.
As a species we may get lucky. All 8 billion of us may win the '“viro lotto” and the necessary mutation may never happen, or, just one isolated case out there could turn the tide against us. Once the resistance is established, it won’t matter if everybody else on the planet has been vaccinated. COVID-21 will have the potential to take on a new life of its own and we will have to start all over again, counting the dead while we wait for a new vaccine! We are all just one tribe. No one of us is safe unless we are all safe!