Appliance of Science: Why is COVID-19 mutating?

Dr. Naomi Lavelle takes a look at what makes these new COVID-19 variants different from others and how the vaccines will react to these strains.

There have been three new variants of the COVID-19 virus in the last couple of months, namely the UK variant, the South African variant  and the Brazilian variant. The UK and South African variants have been detected in Ireland and the UK variant in particular accounts for at least 45 percent of our current cases.

This time last year we were all hearing about the new coronavirus for the first time; a year on and we have all learned a lot about this virus. To shake it up a little it seems we have some new variants on the scene but why has the virus mutated and what do these changes mean?

Mutants