Mounting evidence suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 virus underwent a mutation early in the pandemic that allowed the virus to spread more easily between people, according to The New York Times.
The 614G mutation was first identified in eastern China in January before rapidly spreading to Europe and New York City. This variant became the most dominant form of the virus within a few months, spurring a prolonged scientific debate as to why.
Numerous U.K.- and U.S.-based research projects cited by the Times support the idea that the mutation allowed this virus variant to infect people more easily than the original variant found in Wuhan, China. In one study, U.K. researchers conducted a genetic analysis of community outbreaks and found they grew faster when caused by the mutated virus.
While COVID-19 would have likely spread globally even if the virus mutation had not occurred, it appears that the mutation may have caused the pandemic to spread farther and faster, according to David Engelthaler, PhD, a geneticist at the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix.
"When all is said and done, it could be that this mutation is what made the pandemic," he told the Times.
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