The variant, purportedly a mixture of Delta and Omicron, most likely does not exist and is the result of a standard lab error, virologists have told Newsweek.
But virologists have toldthey are certain the findings are in error. Krista Queen is director of viral genomics and surveillance at Louisiana State University Shreveport. She explained that the likely source of the error can be traced back to the sequencing technique used to identify the COVID samples that the Cyprus team had collected.
One particular sequencing protocol, known as ARTIC V3, is known to be unable to detect a specific part of the Delta genome, Queen said. This dropout area is called amplicon #72. Notably, it is in this location that the Omicron-like features of the"Deltacron" variant showed up. "It's just so unlikely," Queen said."Viruses are prone to recombination, and we actually saw it quite a bit with MERS Coronavirus. We haven't seen it with SARS-CoV-2. So it's not outside the realm of possibilities. But the fact that it happened right there in that one amplicon region just doesn't seem likely."
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