Today’s patients likely host future COVID-19 variants
A small Spanish study suggests each infected person has a mix of slightly different SARS-CoV-2 viruses
Mutated coronavirus particles found inside infected people are likely to be early examples of important variants, new findings suggest.
Spanish researchers closely analysed virus particles obtained from 10 people with infections attributed to the Alpha variant in April 2021.
They identified some virions containing four of the mutations characteristic of the Omicron variant.
This variant did not emerge until seven months later in South Africa with more than 30 changes relative to the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 virus.
