Rapid Evolution of SARS-CoV-2 Challenges Human Defenses

  1. Carlos M. Duarte
  2. David Ketcheson
  3. Víctor M. Eguíluz
  4. Susana Agustí
  5. Juan Fernández-Gracia
  6. Tahira Jamil
  7. Elisa Laiolo
  8. Takashi Gojobori
  9. Intikhab Alam

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Abstract

Evolutionary ecology theory provides an avenue to anticipate the future behavior of SARS-CoV-2. Here we quantify the accelerating evolution of SARS-CoV-2 by tracking the SARS-CoV-2 mutation globally, with a focus on the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) of the spike protein believed to determine infectivity. We estimate that 384 million people were infected by March 1st, 2021, producing up to 10 21 copies of the virus, with one new RBD variant appearing for every 600,000 human infections, resulting in approximately three new effective RBD variants produced daily. Doubling the number of RBD variants every 71.67 days followed by selection of the most infective variants challenges our defenses and calls for a shift to anticipatory, rather than reactive tactics.

One-Sentence Summary

Accelerating evolution of SARS-CoV-2 demands formulating universal vaccines and treatments based on big-data simulations of possible new variants.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.27.437300: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.03.27.437300 on bioRxiv