A little less than a month ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified virus line C.37 as a "variant of interest" and as "Lambda" in its new system of conspicuous Sars-CoV-2 variants, which is arranged according to the Greek alphabet queued. Lambda spread in South America since August last year. At that time there was hardly any competition for them, and no vaccines anyway. Peru is the country of origin. The four "Variants of Concern" - the worrying virus variants according to WHO estimates - were not enough for Lambda. As a Variant of Interest, or VOI for short, it was nevertheless epidemiologically interesting beyond the geographical region; it has now been proven in thirty countries.
It was also genetically noticeable because, like other virus variants, it contains a number of mutations that make it potentially more contagious than the original virus and possibly more dangerous for us humans because of possible immune escape mutations.
The focus was on the two previously little known mutations L452Q and F490S in the sensitive area of the spike virus molecule.
Alpha and Delta are setting the tone in Europe
However, there were no further relevant findings. The Robert Koch Institute mentioned the virus in its variant status report published two and a half weeks ago in a table of variants “under observation”. Lambda went underground in Gisaid's genetic virus database. Until recently, when the trips started again, there was hardly any evidence in Europe. Lambda recently listed "Public Health England", which is famous for its particularly meticulous virus monitoring system, in a five-line note: Between February 23 and June 7, six Lambda infections became known, four in London, one in the southwest and one in the Midlands. Five of them were brought in with travelers, the origin of the sixth remains unclear. Means: Lambda was almost a no-name epidemiologically,a pandemic player on the WHO reserve bank. Alpha and Delta set the tone in the European field, and so far they are.
In addition to the arena, however, in the entertainment area of pandemic reporting, boredom seems to be spreading. Because suddenly the pale lambda variant is publicly assigned properties for which there is no reliable evidence. No matter: “#Lambda” is cheered and trending, and that's precisely because those who consider the whole thing to be a spook anyway, still secrete their own garbage on the speculative grains en masse.
On July 3rd, at least that can be proven tangibly, a (not yet scientifically appraised) study on lambda by microbiologists at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York was published on the preprint platform “bioarXiv”.
Conclusion: Lambda is one of the known variants that is particularly unspectacular from an infectious point of view.
The infection rate is somewhat higher than that of the original virus, but neither the known vaccines nor the antibodies from those who have recovered and even the particularly sensitive artificial monoclonal antibodies that can be used as therapy are not significantly affected by the virus mutations.
For the time being, the Lambda spectacle must be counted among those communicative scare shots for which the term "scariants" was coined in the USA: fear-maker variants.