Scientists from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory recently spoke to The Washington Post and stated that their findings indicated that COVID-19 wasn’t mutating radically. Molecular geneticist Peter Thielen, said “That’s a relatively small number of mutations for having passed through a large number of people. At this point, the mutation rate of the virus would suggest that the vaccine developed for SARS-CoV-2 would be a single vaccine, rather than a new vaccine every year like the flu vaccine.”
According to the researcher’s results, COVID-19 isn’t mutating a whole bunch, which could mean that a single vaccine such as measles, or chickenpox vaccine could suffice. “I would expect a vaccine for coronavirus would have a similar profile to those vaccines. It’s great news” said Thielen.
The researchers observed 1,000+ strains of the virus and only found that it altered in genetic code around four to ten times. These virus strains were sourced from the origin of the outbreak - Wuhan, China, and the virus strain that has infected United States citizens.