zeiandren t1_j7ipcnf wrote
Reply to comment by atred in (Virology) Has SARS-CoV-2 outcompeted all the other coronaviruses which have been called the ‘common cold’? by jsgui
It’s not highly mutable. The fact we give the strains names shows how few there are. Some viruses every single one of the millions of copies a single cell makes will have major mutations. Like we talk about flu viruses by what proteins they have in a mad libs format because every virus is so different than it’s parent that species don’t even make sense.
GreggAlan t1_j7jqhpf wrote
That's why making a universal vaccine for influenza, or for all the rhinoviruses and coronaviruses hasn't been figured out. There's so many variants that play hokey-pokey-mixmaster with their components that a vaccine for one may only work on it and a few closely related mutations.
Straight-Plankton-15 t1_j7o3xrx wrote
The caveat is that virtually every new variant since 2022 has simply been placed under the Omicron umbrella label, when some of them are more different from one another than the previous variants of concern were from the original variant.
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