UK, South African, Brazilian: a virologist explains each COVID variant and what they mean for the pandemic

Australia has recently seen SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) escape several times from hotel quarantine, including in Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne.

These incidents have been particularly concerning because they involved people infected with “variants” of the virus.

But what exactly are these variants, and how concerned should we be?

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What’s a variant?

Viruses can’t replicate and spread on their own. They need a host, and they need to hijack the cells of the host to replicate. When they replicate in a host, they face the challenge of duplicating their genetic material. For many viruses, this isn’t an exact process and their offspring often contain errors — meaning they’re not exact copies of the original virus.

These…