search

hodcroftlab / covariants

Real-time updates and information about key SARS-CoV-2 variants, plus the scripts that generate this information.
https://covariants.org/
GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
316 stars 111 forks source link

More information about the omicron variant #236

Closed Amin-Sharifan closed 2 years ago

Amin-Sharifan commented 2 years ago

According to this recent ScienceInsider article (link: https://www.science.org/content/article/where-did-weird-omicron-come), omicron appears to be distinct compared with other SARS-CoV-2 variants (i.e., alpha, beta, etc) in terms of its original formation. In other words, omicron seems to be the oldest among the SARS-CoV-2 variants and yet it was detected just a week ago as of writing this issues. Though its detection was recent, its original existence seems to date back to the early 2020. Is this concept worth mentioning in the CoVariants under the heading "Variant: 21K (Omicron)"?

emmahodcroft commented 2 years ago

Dear @Amin-Sharifan - thanks so much for this information and link! However, since we still know very little about the variant origins (it's mostly guessing at the moment), I'm going to not mention it for the time, and see if we learn more in the future, with more confidence. Thank you for all the great link suggestions though, I really appreciate them!