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Next round of COVID-19 shots in fall will target latest omicron strain (www.independent.co.uk)

submitted 1 year ago by Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world to c/usa@lemmy.ml

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[–] sundaefundae@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is anyone here enough of a scientist to explain why we’re still on omicron instead of a new name? I feel like we flew through the Greek letters til we got to omicron and now we’ve been here for a couple years.

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Think of it like a tree. You have the initial virus as the trunk, and then you have branches off that trunk (delta, omicron, etc), and then you have branches off of the branches, and so on and so on.

The most dominant version of coronavirus floating around is XBB.1.16, known as "Arcturus.” Arcturus is off the omicron branch of the evolutionary tree.