I've read on some expert twitter threads (virologists and such) that omicron is not a descendant of more recent variants like delta, but rather an evolution of a very old strain which then picked up a metric shitton of mutations in a short period of time. It is strongly suspected that this development took place in an immunocompromised patient (most likely HIV) who had a months-long, chronic covid infection and acted as a human petri dish. Basically, the virus underwent some sort quick motion evolution in this immunocompromised patient.

Scientists are freaking out about this thing because it contains a lot of mutations which have proven to be problematic in earlier variants, but the way this variant (most likely) came into existence could also explain a reduced deadliness. Like I wrote two hours ago, normally, there is little short-term evolutionary pressure on the virus to become less virulent because it has already spread before killing the current host. But if this strain evolved in a single patient over a long-ish timeframe, this pressure existed and might have made this variant better adapted to human hosts than previous strains which were closer to the zoonotic origin of the virus.

But all of this is of course pure speculation at this point.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 28 2021 06:27am

This are still matters of statistical probabilities that usually play out over generations of a virus circulating in a population. Im not sure evolutionary pressures can hold much predictive power of the acute mutations in a pandemic.

Then again, the burst of mutations in this variant indicates that it comes from a quick motion evolution in a single, immunocompromised patient. The virus underwent many generations of evolution in a short timeframe and the result is omicron. Basically, if there was no HIV, this is a mutation profile that we could have expected to pop up in 6 or 10 years or so, but instead, it's appeared right now.

everything I've said is accurate about you too, don't forget that

I ain't scared, at this point my antibodies are OVER 9000!

WHO: "high risk due to omicron variant"
also the WHO: "critical of travel restrictions due to omicron variant"

chills

"The Omicron Variant" sounds like a spy movie.







LOL at "brain fog". Sounds like "brain cloud" in the movie: Joe Versus the Volcano.

This post was edited by Ghot on Nov 29 2021 06:28am

right. i really don't know much about it, but evolutionary pressure by its nature cannot be applied to a single infection. need iterations of selection (and unfortunately fatalities in strains that cause more severe illness) for this to really be a factor. Looking at this in the scheme of the broader covid pandemic, it's not abnormal for a decrease in severity of a virus in a two year period. pretty interesting, and a bit concerning that thus far, covid has increased in transmissibility but hasn't really decreased in severity.