Sunday, January 02, 2022

Origin of Oh Oh Omicron...




Genomic epidemiology of novel coronavirus - Africa-focused subsampling [Nextstrain.org

Now, you could read that as 'Double O' short-hand for fictional licenced-to-kill undercover agent or 'Oh Oh' as in awareness of a problem, mild alarm or worry over the realisation of an error...but...Ian Rons at the Daily Skeptic gives us his 'Bond' tongue in cheek conspiracy theory (honest, I know all the others have come true but this is a joke). however, it may be the case ("Self-disseminating vaccines to suppress zoonoses")! 

Anyhooo, a month ago Igor Chudov wrote "Omicron 'variant' likely to be man-made. It evolved from a strain that is not in circulation as of 1.5 years ago." And from almost two weeks back "Omicron is Not Normal " [eugyppius], and last week from Jonatan Pallesen [his Twitter] "It is based on a variant last seen in mid-2020.

"That is a very odd path for a virus to evolve naturally. But a normal one if it was investigated in a lab since then." 

There are many more with so much info (e.g. Dr. B, or the Chinese!) but links lead to links and the rabbit hole is endless albeit super interesting and thought provoking. Below you'll see two more images of the evolutionary connections (Omicron's goes back to mid 2020 remember), on the right the larger view, on the left a close-up of the origin (click to enlarge) ...maybe that OO isn't so conspiratorial after all...







Images from Nextstrain via Trevor Bedford.



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