We were warned that this SARS-related virus was likely to mutate and change much like seasonal flu. Consequently, to expect a silver bullet in the form of a vaccine is likely unrealistic.
Coronaviruses will acquire some mutations, but I think it’s generally accepted that the expectation in general is for a significantly slower rate of mutation than flu.
But sequencing data suggest that coronaviruses change more slowly than most other RNA viruses, probably because of a ‘proofreading’ enzyme that corrects potentially fatal copying mistakes. A typical SARS-CoV-2 virus accumulates only two single-letter mutations per month in its genome — a rate of change about half that of influenza and one-quarter that of HIV, says Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of Basel, Switzerland.
Other genome data have emphasized this stability — more than 90,000 isolates have been sequenced and made public (see www.gisaid.org). Two SARS-CoV-2 viruses collected from anywhere in the world differ by an average of just 10 RNA letters out of 29,903, says Lucy Van Dorp, a computational geneticist at University College London, who is tracking the differences for signs that they confer an evolutionary advantage.
We were warned that this SARS-related virus was likely to mutate and change much like seasonal flu. Consequently, to expect a silver bullet in the form of a vaccine is likely unrealistic.
Coronaviruses will acquire some mutations, but I think it’s generally accepted that the expectation in general is for a significantly slower rate of mutation than flu.
See, for example, this long-ish read from early September: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02544-6
On the specific comparison to flu, it says: