A man wearing a face mask runs past a street blocked by barricades and shared bicycles in Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak, Hubei province, China March 5, 2020.
In a preliminary study conducted by the researchers at Peking University's School of Life Sciences and Institute Pasteur of Shanghai said that the virus has evolved into two major lineages, known as "L" and "S" types.
The researchers warned that their study only looked at a limited range of data, so follow-up studies of larger data sets are needed to understand further the evolution of the virus. The preliminary study found that these two main strains of the virus are circulating and is causing infections.
Furthermore, it was also found out that the newer and more aggressive L type strain has contributed to 70% of the analyzed cases while 30 percent were linked to the S type which is the lesser aggressive type.
The prevalence of the L type strain is connected to the virus' early stages of the outbreak in Wuhan, where COVID-19 was first detected last year. It slowly dropped from early January.
Meanwhile, the S type strain continues to infect people, and scientists believe it could be because it is less aggressive so people carry it for longer before going to the hospital, increasing the chance of transmitting the disease to other people.
In the Journal Science Review, the researchers wrote:" These findings strongly support an urgent need for further immediate, comprehensive studies that combine genomic data, epidemiological data, and chart records of the clinical symptoms of patients without coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)."
But experts not directly involved in the study said that although these findings are interesting, people should be careful in concluding such preliminary research. Dr. Michael Skinner, reader in virology at Imperial College London commented that it was too early to speculate on any practical consequences based on "interesting observation."
He added, that at the moment there's no sign that the mutations do not seem to have affected the sequence of S1 spike protein which is the antigen most scientists are targeting in creating the vaccine for COVID-19.
Decreasing New Cases in China
Compared the other day with 125 new cases, mainland China has reported on Tuesday 119 new cases, the National Health Commission said. New cases of the COVID-19 are slowly decreasing since the middle of February.
By March 3, the total number of cases in mainland China has now reached 80,270 while the number of deaths rose by 39 to bring the total toll to 2, 981.
Chinese officials have begun to seek ways to prevent the virus from spreading outside China and guard future outbreaks when the number of new daily infected cases outside the country has now exceeded China.
Authorities have asked Chinese nationals who live in other countries to reconsider their travel plans in going back to China. Meanwhile, cities across the country have set up quarantine rules for those who will enter the high-risk zones.
Cao Xuejun, an official with China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a press briefing in Beijing on Wednesday that domestic producers of medical protective equipment export protective suits to meet overseas demands.
According to Mao Qunan, an official at China's National Health Commission said at the same press briefing that Chinese authorities now are also studying setting up emergency reserves for protective materials and medical resources.
