How is the sugar coating of the Delta variant different from the sugar coating this coronavirus had always had?
I can only guess from the little I’ve read, but there’s a D614G mutation, which “increases the density’ of the spike (which, I’m also guessing, would make the sugar layer more dense and cover more of the ‘blank’ spots or ‘holes’ in the coating) And then in there somewhere is the S13T and L452R mutations contributing to the increased shielding. But it’s just a guess.
Cool pix of sugar coat with ‘holes’:
https://www.kpbs.org/news/2020/jun/25/coronavirus-covered-sugar-shield-uc-san-diego-scie/