VANCOUVER -- It seems hard to believe that a year ago, many of us may not have even heard of COVID-19.

Since then, more than 48,000 people in B.C. have been infected with a virus that continues to change.

Inside a sequencing lab at the BC Centre for Disease Control, you can hear the whir of machines working to help scientists track the genetic make-up of the coronavirus.

“We’ve been sequencing in B.C. since February. We were one of the first labs in Canada to do sequencing,” explains Natalie Prystajecky who heads up Environmental Microbiology at the BCCDC.

Prystajecky says the sequencing has revealed dozens of different strains or lineages of the virus, just in the province.

“We’ve seen about 40 unique different sub-lineages but we have about ten dominant lineages,” she said in an interview with CTV News Vancouver.

So far, the new variants of the virus raising alarm in the United Kingdom have not made their way to B.C.

But through lab work, scientists discovered that the virus of the first wave of infections in B.C. is different from the COVID-19 virus infecting residents now.

“We’ve seen replacement, more mutations arising and we see slightly different strains,” said Prystajecky.

The good news is that the mutation is happening slowly.

“This virus mutates so slowly. It acquires two mutations a month and so compared to something like HIV, that is nothing … people are concerned the virus is mutating and will it still respond to the vaccine or some of the antibody treatments? It’s not changing that much,” she explained.

So what if you are one of the tens of thousands of British Columbians who’ve already had the virus? Could you get COVID again and do you still need to get vaccinated?

The medical director at the Vancouver Infectious Disease Centre says the answer is yes.

“For sure you can get COVID more than once. We have an increasing number of examples of that … and if you can get it more than once with the same variant, you can get it more than once obviously with a different variant,” said Dr. Brian Conway.

Which means that even those who have recovered from COVID can’t let their guard down.

“What we don’t understand and need a bit more time to figure out is, does everyone develop antibodies … if they do, how long do they last and in what way do they protect against reinfection?” he said.

So far, B.C. has no confirmed cases of re-infection.