[The Epoch Times, March 13, 2022](English Epoch Times reporter Zachary Stieber / Takasugi Compiled) “Deltacron” produced by a hybrid cross between the Omicron variant of the COVID virus and the Delta variant has been identified by some scientists as a new variant. Although epidemiologists from the World Health Organization have previously denied the existence of this new virus, more and more countries, including the United States, have recently confirmed cases of infection with the new variant of Deltacron.
Researchers at Helix, a California-based genomics company, have identified two cases of infection with a new variant of COVID-19 created by crossing Delta and Omicron variants. And researchers in France have identified 18 people infected with this new hybrid variant.
In addition, the World Health Organization (WHO) later said that cases of such new variants had also been found in the Netherlands and Denmark.
In 2021, the Delta variant is the main strain of the CCP virus responsible for the global COVID-19 outbreak. But by the end of the year, it had been replaced by the Omicron variant in most countries.
WHO’s COVID-19 technical lead, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, told reporters at a recent briefing that so far, experts have not found that patients infected with the Deltacron hybrid virus have Any different symptoms, and there is no indication that the Deltacron mix is causing more severe symptoms of COVID-19 infection.
“Unfortunately, we did foresee that we might see recombinant viruses, because that’s the nature of viruses, and they change over time,” she said.
“This outbreak is far from over,” she added.
In the U.S., Helix scientists, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Washington Medical Center and Thermo Fisher Scientific, sequenced 29,719 samples between November 2021 and February 2022, identifying Twenty cases of “co-infection” with the Delta and Omicron variants were identified, as well as two additional cases identified as being infected by new variants resulting from recombination of Delta and Omicron.
“Our study demonstrates the existence of co-infections and at least one infection caused by mixed recombination novel variants in these co-infected populations, as well as two cases of near-mixed recombination,” the researchers wrote in the study. A case of infection with multiple copies of a novel variant virus.
However, the infection mechanism of the recombinant virus remains a mystery, the researchers said. The Epoch Times obtained the study before it was published. Experts plan to publish the report as a preprint on the MedRxiv server in the coming days.
The researchers were supported by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. Possible reasons for this, they believe, include that the two infections were co-infections before the hybrid virus defeated the Delta and Omicron variants.
In France, a government-funded research team confirmed three cases of infection with a mixed recombinant new variant. They had previously identified 17 other cases, the team said in a preprint report of a study.
Professor Phillipe Colson, one of the study’s authors, told The Epoch Times in an email that the number of confirmed cases is too low to “make sense of this mixed virus. epidemiological and clinical features.”
Scientists in Cyprus first reported the emergence of this hybrid variant of Deltacron in January, according to reports. But some experts say the new strains they have identified appear to be the result of laboratory contamination.
John Moore, a virologist at Cornell University, said he wasn’t sure if the recently reported hybrid variant of the virus actually existed, although both the U.S. and French teams said their findings is reasonable.
In any case, Moore told The Epoch Times in an email there is no reason to be concerned right now.
He said: “What’s the point of worrying? If it’s not real, it’s going to go away very quickly. If it’s real, what’s the use of worrying? Let’s see what happens over time. What comes up. But I need to see more than just focus on another ‘horrible’ story.”
Responsible editor: Sun Yun#