Reports that a hybrid Covid variant of Omicron and Delta dubbed ‘Deltacron’ is spreading across the world are not yet a cause for concern, scientists have said. MailOnline has more.
Fears about ‘Deltacron’ were raised again this week after the World Health Organisation announced the super-mutant had been spotted in France, Holland and Denmark.
But U.K. Health Security Agency bosses who have been tracking the strain for weeks have spotted just 32 domestic cases.
While the hybrid variant has shown it can spread between people, experts and health authorities have insisted it is not growing at concerning rate and is unlikely to replace Omicron.
Professor Ian Jones, a virologist at the University of Reading, said it would be hard to see how the hybrid could outcompete the now dominant BA.2 subvariant of Omicron.
“Omicron replaced Delta so a hybrid is a step back and unlikely to be ‘better’ in any appreciable way,” he told the the Times.
He added that unless monitoring shows that it could be a threat “it doesn’t warrant particular attention”.
Professor Lawrence Young, a microbiologist from the University of Warwick, told MailOnline it was “unlikely” to result in a rise in severe disease.
“Given waning immunity in the population and the removal of all restrictions, it is likely that Deltacron will spread but is unlikely to result in severe disease,” he said.
“The BA.2 cousin of Omicron is currently spreading in the England and is more transmissible than the original Omicron variant.”
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