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Scientists are learning more about a hybrid variant of COVID-19 that has been detected called “deltacron.” Deltacron was first reported early this year, when it was thought to be a co-infection of the omicron and delta coronavirus variants (meaning people were possibly infected with two variants at once). Now, researchers believe it’s a single, hybrid variant that combines genes from both delta and omicron. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization decided to start tracking deltacron, but is not yet calling it a variant of concern. “It’s got features of omicron and features of delta,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, a professor...

The World Health Organization has confirmed the emergence of a new variant, dubbed deltamicron or deltacron — a combination of delta and omicron. Five things to know: 1. Three COVID-19 infections in southern France were identified with a delta 21J/AY.4-omicron 21K/BA.1 recombinant, or deltamicron, according to a preprint published March 8 in MedRxiv. The study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, found that the hybrid genome has signature mutations of the two lineages. It's similar to cases reported for 15 other patients sampled since January 2022 in Europe. The mutation is misidentified with current PCR variant screening, so researchers designed...

Is the COVID pandemic really reaching its final stretch? That’s what Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla would like the public to believe – he said during a recent series of interviews with the French media that life on earth should “return to normal” in the coming months. Of course, the “experts” said the same thing last winter. But the reality on the ground shows that we’re a long way away. Globally, the number of new COVID cases has declined from a single-day peak reached earlier this month. Meanwhile, a growing number of governments are taking extreme measures to try and crack...

Global health experts are casting doubts over reports of a new possible Covid-19 mutation that appeared to be a combination of both the delta and omicron variants, dubbed as “deltacron,” saying it’s more likely that the “strain” is the result of a lab processing error. At the weekend it was reported that a researcher in Cyprus had discovered the potential new variant. Bloomberg News said Saturday that Leondios Kostrikis, professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus, had called the strain “deltacron,” because of its omicron-like genetic signatures within the delta genomes. Kostrikis and his team said they had...

Scientists in Cyprus have found 25 cases of a strain of the coronavirus that they say combines elements of the delta and omicron variants, dubbing it “deltacron,” with a high proportion of the variant found in patients hospitalized for Covid-19, a professor involved in the identification of the new strain said Saturday.

SAN FRANCISCO — The rapid growth of Omicron is prompting officials to warn that hospitals could easily become overwhelmed, potentially within weeks, as they deal with a combination of the newest variant of the coronavirus along with patients hit by a holiday wave of the Delta strain. California and the rest of the nation now face a formidable winter. According to the state’s COVID forecasting models, there are plausible scenarios in which a winter surge could hit hospitals worse than the summer Delta wave, which strained facilities across swaths of the state. The combination is “a perfect storm for overwhelming...

A new super-variant could be created if Omicron and Delta infect someone at the same time, one of Moderna's bosses has warned. Covid infections normally only involve one mutant strain, but in extremely rare cases two can strike at the same time. If these also infect the same cell, they may be able to swap DNA and combine to make a new version of the virus.