• ALBERTO HERNÁNDEZ

    @albertohv_

    Madrid

Updated on Monday, 3January2022-15: 37

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  • Direct Latest news of the coronavirus

  • Ómicron evolution, the vaccine for the unvaccinated that could put an end to the pandemic

All viruses evolve and undergo mutations over time.

Most of these changes have no effect on the properties of the pathogen.

But, in some cases, these alterations, or the sum of them, can provide 'advantages', such as a

greater facility to spread or to escape the action of the immune system.

Since the appearance of SARS-CoV-2, organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) have evaluated the different variants of the virus that are emerging and their ability to pose a threat.

Baptized with the names of the letters of the Greek alphabet, in this second year of the pandemic we have witnessed the emergence of variants such as

alpha, beta, gamma, delta and omicron,

all of them classified as "worrying", according to WHO criteria. Some, such as beta and gamma, failed to become dominant, their role was restricted to certain areas of the planet. However,

others did manage to prevail.

Delta did this quickly after its emergence in India in October 2020.

And omicron appears to be doing it even faster

, thanks to its enormous transmission capacity.

Will this be the last variant of SARS-CoV-2, as some argue?

There are nine letters left before reaching omega, the last one in the Greek alphabet.

Hopefully we will not have to resort to neither them nor the constellation names that the WHO proposes to use if we get to that scenario.

Sources:

WHO, GISAID (information obtained through ECDC and covSpectrum), Ministry of Health, Community of Madrid, UK Health Security Agency, Reuters and own calculations.

Cristina G. Lucio has contributed to this information.

Infographic:

Alberto Hernández.

Art direction:

María González Manteca.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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