coronavirus strains, and then those strains have an opportunity to mix together and do what we call recombination that generates these sort of hybrid viruses. Whether this is going to take off in the way that Delta did or that Omicron has done — only time will tell.”
However, the team leader of GISAID, a Germany-based international database that tracks viruses believes Omicron will overtake “Deltacron.”
Deltacron found more in hospitalized patients
Leondios Kostrikis, head of the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology, says his team’s analysis shows that “Deltacron” is more often found in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 than those with the illness who are not hospitalized.
“We will see in the future if this strain is more pathological or more contagious or if it will prevail” against the two top variants, Delta and Omicron, Kostrikis says.
Omicron vs. Delta: Three Key Differences Between the Two Variants
What should you do
The United States had exceeded 60 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, which is about equivalent to the populations of California and Florida combined. However, because some of those are COVID reinfection, the tally doesn’t necessarily equal 60 million.
“We are seeing people who had COVID early on and who had not gotten vaccinated and then get COVID another time.” Kuritzkes shares. “And we know from reports from around the world, that that is certainly a possibility, particularly when people were infected with the original strain. That doesn’t confer any cross-protection against the newer strains.”
“The best thing we can do besides worrying about it and coining variant names that sound like a ‘Transformers’ villain, is ensuring that vaccines are available to everyone and combining vaccination with other strategies that give the virus fewer opportunities to spread,” Dr. Boghuma Kabisen Titanji, a global health expert adds.