HOW MUCH OF THE CONCERN OVER VARIANTS AND SUB-VARIANTS IS JUST A PRODUCT OF OUR ABILITY TO DO DETAILED DNA TESTING? Omicron ‘sub-variant’ throws up new virus questions.

Related: Deltacron: The story of the variant that wasn’t. “In an e-mail to Nature, Kostrikis explains that his initial hypothesis was that some Delta virus particles had independently evolved mutations in the spike gene similar to those common in Omicron. But after the wide news coverage, other scientists working on genetic sequencing and COVID-19 pointed out another possibility: a lab error.”