COVID anti-viral drug is actively helping SARS-CoV-2 mutate and evolve

This is the best summary I could come up with:

With every new infection, the pandemic coronavirus gets new chances to mutate and adapt, creating opportunities for the virus to evolve new variants that are better at dodging our immune systems and making us sicker.

The study's authors—led by researchers at the Francis Crick Institute in London and the University of Cambridge—scanned through more than 15 million SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences found in global databases.

These suspected molnupiravir-linked mutation signatures also matched those seen in viruses examined in a clinical trial of molnupiravir.

The researchers found evidence that some of the molnupiravir-linked mutations were under positive selection—that is, they increased in frequency, suggesting that they were advantageous to the virus in some way.

The findings indicate that "molnupiravir results in new mutations, increasing the genetic diversity in the surviving viral population," Theo Sanderson, lead author and postdoctoral researcher at the Francis Crick Institute, said in a statement.

Still, Sanderson says the study's finding is important for weighing the risks and benefits of molnupiravir, highlighting the "possibility of persistent antiviral-induced mutations."

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