Coronavirus Mutations Expected, More Will Be Discovered, WHO Experts Say

Experts at the World Health Organization say mutations of the coronavirus are expected and more mutations will be discovered in the future.

With regards to the UK and South Africa, these are two separate virus variants that have emerged at the same time," said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO COVID-19 Technical Lead. "They are different, they both have the 501Y mutation, which is a mutation in the spike protein. But they're different viruses. They're different variants."

According to WHO experts, while getting the virus under control with the vaccine will happen, the virus could eventually become endemic, meaning nearly constant at a certain level.

Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO's Health Emergencies Program said, "And we still don't know, based on a virus evolution, based on so many other things, the likely scenario is the virus will become, as David Heymann said previously, another endemic virus.

Experts said that it would take a higher degree of efficiency in the vaccination programs to eradicate the virus.