LOS ANGELES — The country’s top infectious disease expert said Thursday that the novel coronavirus has mutated in a way that might help it replicate better and spread more easily.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, shared this research in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“We don’t have a connection to whether an individual does worse with this or not. It just seems that the virus replicates better and may be more transmissible,” Fauci said.
But, what is a “new mutation,” and should the public be worried?
What is a virus mutation?
The National Cancer Institute defines a ‘“new mutation” as a genetic alteration that is present for the first time in one family member as a result of a mutation in a germ cell of one of the parents.
In layman’s terms, viruses naturally mutate and can replicate, especially those that are cons