Deltacron is the combination of two prominent COVID-19 variants. Here’s what that means and why you shouldn’t stress too much.
Our COVID-19 panic is reaching new heights, to a degree where new diseases and terms are no longer surprising. “Deltacron” is this week’s offering, a COVID-19 variant that is the combination of two pandemic hits: Delta and Omicron. Here’s why you shouldn’t stress out just yet.
Deltacron is the catchy name of a new variant, supposedly discovered in Cyprus, which analyzed a COVID-19 sample that had elements of both Omicron and Delta, resulting in a recombination of variants that might be more dangerous than a regular mutation. While mutation occurs naturally, recombination occurs in a host, when someone catches both variants and the virus replicates itself within the hosts’ cells.
RELATED: Taking An At-Home COVID-19 Test? Doing This Might Increase Accuracy
While this description sounds very spooky, according to I News, some scientists have questioned the validity of Deltacron, believing that the researchers’ sample might have been contaminated.
“On ‘deltacron’, there are concerns about the validity of this variant – whether it is real or an artifact of the sequencing technology. We need more data to confirm the existence of this variant and whether it is spreading in the population,” explained virologist Lawrence Young.
While there’s still some evidence that suggests Deltacron might be real, this variant would only become a concern if it’s more transmissible than previous ones, which there’s no way of knowing.
RELATED: Omicron 2022: What Parents Should Know About Sending Their Kids Back To School
At this point in the pandemic, it’s important to know when to panic and when not to. While new variants likely imply that a new COVID-19 wave is coming, it’s important to have the right sources and the right data, particularly now that so many people are invested in covering every possible permutation of COVID-19.
