Prof Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, told the Guardian that the arrival of the India variant was potentially worrying. He said: “These two escape mutations working together could be a lot more problematic than the South African and Brazilian variants which have only got one escape mutation. “It might be even less controlled by vaccine than the Brazilian and South African variants.”
The variant featured two “escape mutations” – E484Q and L452R – that “are causing people to be concerned. “There’s laboratory evidence that both of these are escape mutations. Basically, applying what we know about other human coronaviruses would suggest that this is going to be even less controlled by vaccine. But we don’t know that for certain at the moment”
