As if the pandemic werenโt bad enough, on April 30, a team led by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory released a paper that purportedly described โthe emergence of a more transmissible formโ of the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2.
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But โthe conclusions are overblown,โ says Lisa Gralinski of the University of North Carolina, who is one of the few scientists in the world who specializes in coronaviruses. โTo say that youโve revealed the emergence of a more transmissible form of SARS-CoV-2 without ever actually testing it isnโt the type of thing that makes me feel comfortable as a scientist.โ She and other virologists Iโve spoken with who were not involved in the Los Alamos research agree that the paperโs claims are plausible, but not justified by the evidence it presents. More important, theyโre not convinced different strains of the coronavirus exist at all.
โWe have evidence for one strain,โ says Brian Wasik at Cornell University.
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The bottom line: It will take time to know whether different strains of the new coronavirus even exist, let alone whether any are more or less dangerous than the others. Any claims of that kind should be taken with a grain of salt for the next several months, if not longer.
