Dr. Ding’s warning comes a day after another hybrid variant of SARS-CoV-2, a recombinant of Delta and omicron called the Deltacron was detected across Europe and the US.
As state authorities are scaling down the pandemic by taking back restrictions and allowing free movement, a US-based epidemiologist has lashed out at making it look like the pandemic is coming to an end. Dr Eric Feigl-Ding has warned the world that it is at the brink of yet another wave. America has recently closed several testing centers, the UK has taken back travel restrictions for foreign travelers. Other countries too are easing measures to open economy. Australia, known for its strictest restrictions too has been consulting health panels to relax quarantine rules for closed contacts.
Dr. Ding’s warning comes a day after another hybrid variant of SARS-CoV-2, a recombinant of Delta and omicron called the Deltacron was detected across Europe and the US. The health economist predicts that the US is just weeks behind the Europe that has witnessed the Deltacron surge.
“We live in the STUPIDEST timeline -#BA2 is rising and inevitably surging, yet many states close most of their mass testing sites even when public health experts warn it is TERRIBLE HORRIBLE NO GOOD VERY BAD idea,” he wrote on Twitter.”Testing sites provide health officials with data to anticipate new surges and variants in a way that at-home rapid tests cannot.”
Initial findings suggest that Deltacron has the worst traits of both the strains, Delta and Omicron, making it highly potent and infectious. According to Associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Louisiana State University Jeremy Kamil in the new strain Delta has grabbed Omicron’s spike protein to get attached to a cell. The genomes in the strain are acrobatic and can jump and recombine together. He even compared the new hybrid strain to be a software upgrade of the Delta strain wearing Omicron’s invisibility cloak.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation’s Maria Van Kerkhove has also warned that cases with the new variant will spike in the next few weeks but at present is circulating at very low levels.
Scientists believe the mutation may have emerged from a person infected with both strains at once, let both the strains attach to each other to form. Amore powerful hybrid strain.