Over the past few weeks, the occasional breathless news reports have warned that the novel coronavirus is mutating or that there are multiple strains of the virus circling around the globe. That sounds concerning. If the virus is changing, that could imply that it’s getting worse — but that’s not the case. Although it’s true that the virus is mutating, that doesn’t mean it’s getting more dangerous.
When the virus first emerged in Wuhan, China, its genome had a certain sequence of around 30,000 nucleotides, the building blocks of genetic material. A handful of those nucleotides changed as the virus spread from person to person because the mechanism the virus uses to make copies of itself sometimes makes mistakes. But those changes haven’t made the virus behave any differently, scientists say.
In the latest Verge Science video, we explore how mutations happen, what they mean for the coronavirus, and how scientists are using them to track COVID-19 around the globe.
-
Virus Basics
11
- Everything you need to know about the coronavirus
- No one knows when the COVID-19 pandemic will end
- It’s hard to figure out how often people without symptoms spread COVID-19
- More than 1 million people in the US have tested positive for COVID-19
- Here’s who’s most at risk from the novel coronavirus
- Why we’re seeing some severe COVID-19 cases among younger people
- After recovering, COVID-19 patients struggle to know when to stop isolating
- The best graphs and data for tracking the coronavirus pandemic
- What is contact tracing?
- It’s impossible to count everyone with COVID-19
- We’ve known how to make healthier buildings for decades
-
Virus Response
11
- The new COVID-19 surge may be harder to contain
- The EU plans to ban US travelers indefinitely after haphazard COVID-19 response
- New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut will quarantine travelers from states with surging COVID-19 cases
- Emergency COVID-19 vaccines will have to convince a skeptical public
- You can’t find ‘super-spreader’ businesses with old GPS data
- Coronavirus testing shouldn’t be this complicated
- The new coronavirus is not an excuse to be racist
- Personal privacy matters during a pandemic — but less than it might at other times
- Here’s how hospitals are keeping up emergency services during COVID-19
- Grief support systems have been wrecked by COVID-19
- Masks may be good, but the messaging around them has been very bad
-
How Tos
7
- Everything you wanted to know about self-quarantine, from a person who’s living it
- A germophobe’s guide to a clean phone
- How to make your own hand sanitizer
- How to debunk COVID-19 conspiracy theories
- Apps aren’t a reliable way to measure blood oxygen levels
- How do you deal with people who refuse to wear a mask?
- How to stop your glasses from fogging up when you wear a mask
-
Virus Science
10
- Unproven strategies lead the race for a COVID-19 vaccine
- The disappointing truth about antibody testing
- Sports bubbles are good places to study COVID-19
- Satellites documented COVID-19’s impact from space
- Hydroxychloroquine study retraction shows the problems of speedy science
- Genetic analysis of the coronavirus gives scientists clues about how it’s spreading
- How the coronavirus hitches a ride around your life
- To fight the coronavirus, labs are printing its genome
- COVID-19 clinicians wrestle with false negative results
- The search for COVID-19 treatments shows how messy science can be
-
What the tech sector is doing
16
- Sick days
- How Ford, GM, FCA, and Tesla are bringing back factory workers
- Twitter won’t add ‘misleading’ label to bad science shared by Trump adviser
- Apple and Google are building a coronavirus tracking system into iOS and Android
- Without Apple and Google, the UK’s contact-tracing app is in trouble
- Electronics companies are getting gridlocked by coronavirus lockdowns
- Tech giants will keep paying hourly staff even if they are asked to stay home due to coronavirus
- Postmates says it will start ‘non-contact’ meal deliveries during the coronavirus outbreak
- Facebook temporarily bans ads for medical face masks to prevent coronavirus exploitation
- Google and Microsoft are giving away enterprise conferencing tools due to coronavirus
- Etsy has started cracking down on coronavirus merchandise
- Amazon has barred a million products for making false coronavirus claims
- Facebook confirms ban on misleading coronavirus ads
- How GM and Ford switched out pickup trucks for breathing machines
- The algorithms big companies use to manage their supply chains don’t work during pandemics
- After the pandemic, doctors want their new robot helpers to stay
Sign up for the newsletter Verge Deals
Subscribe to get the best Verge-approved tech deals of the week.