Instead of a single new Greek letter variant, a group of immune-evading omicron spinoffs are popping up all over the world.
Most virologists demur when asked about which variant — or variants — will be infecting people this winter. That doesn’t mean they think the virus is standing still.Much of the world’s population has gained a measure of immunity because of vaccinations and infections with omicron. That protection gave us the relative freedoms of the moment — with many people returning to normal life. But protection is fleeting for two key reasons: immunity wanes and the virus is changing.
Seeing so many lineages of the coronavirus develop similar constellations of genetic changes at these spots is a sign of convergent evolution — when different versions of the virus have slammed into the wall of immune defenses in the human population, and then come up with similar ways to get around them. That happens with influenza but is fairly new to SARS-CoV-2. And in the case of the coronavirus, the more mutations, the bigger advantage a new variant seems to have.
It’s a matter of debate what will happen when one or more of them gets a toehold in a population with a protective layer of underlying immunity. Protection against the worst outcomes is likely to hold up, particularly if bolstered by boosters, many scientists predict. “To put it in context, the summer wasn’t considered a wave — but at the same time, there were lots of issues with work absences, and that kind of thing did have an impact on the world as a whole,” said Manon Ragonnet-Cronin, a scientist at the University of Chicago. “Our primary measurement of how bad these waves are tends to be hospitalizations and deaths, but those other effects shouldn’t be discounted.
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