We have estimated growth rates of expanding mutations acquired by the VOC lineage to find that the L18F substitution in spike has initiated a substrain of high replicative advantage in relation to the remaining VOC substrains. The L18F substitution is of significance because it has been found to compromise binding of neutralizing antibodies.
Of concern are immune escape mutations acquired by the VOC: E484K, F490S, S494P (in the receptor binding motif of spike) and Q677H, Q675H (in the proximity of the polybasic cleavage site at the S1/S2 boundary). These mutants may hinder efficiency of existing vaccines and expand in response to the increasing after-infection or vaccine-induced seroprevalence.
