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Next round of COVID-19 shots in fall will target latest omicron strain (www.independent.co.uk)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is anyone here enough of a scientist to explain why we’re still on omicron instead of a new name? I feel like we flew through the Greek letters til we got to omicron and now we’ve been here for a couple years.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Think of it like a tree. You have the initial virus as the trunk, and then you have branches off that trunk (delta, omicron, etc), and then you have branches off of the branches, and so on and so on.

The most dominant version of coronavirus floating around is XBB.1.16, known as "Arcturus.” Arcturus is off the omicron branch of the evolutionary tree.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I'm just pulling this out of my ass, but I wonder if it is because all of the other strains evolved independently from the original. Once omicron took over any evolutions come from that strain specifically.