"The UK and California variants of coronavirus appear to have combined into a heavily mutated hybrid, sparking concern that we may be entering a new phase of the covid-19 pandemic, because people can be infected with two different variants at once. Recombination could lead to the emergence of new and even more dangerous variants, although it isn’t yet clear how much of a threat this first recombination event might pose. Unlike regular mutation, where changes accumulate one at a time, recombination can bring together multiple mutations in one go. Most of the time, these don’t confer any advantage to the virus, but occasionally they do. “This kind of event could allow the virus to have coupled a more infectious virus with a more resistant virus. ”Read More"
At www.newscientist.com
