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.
this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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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.
I'm just pulling this out of my ass, but I wonder if it is because all of the other strains evolved independently from the original. Once omicron took over any evolutions come from that strain specifically.
I wonder if we should be getting a booster now since it lasts every 6 months? My fifth shot was back in October.
depends on if you're high risk or not
Didn't that we're still vaccinating...
A lot of health agencies anticipate we’ll be doing annual fall boosters for new variants - just like flu shots.