"Omicron’s gift for spreading fast was the result of dozens of mutations. They altered the virus’s surface, so that antibodies produced by vaccines or previous infections could not stick tightly to it and prevent the virus from invading cells. “It was the first virus to figure out in a major way how to escape immunity,” said Dr. Jacob Lemieux, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Lemieux and many other Omicron experts suspect that the variant gained its new mutations while infecting a single person with a weak immune system. Immunocompromised people can only fight off some of the coronaviruses in their bodies during an infection, allowing the ones that remain to acquire mutations that can thwart the immune system. “It becomes like a laboratory for virus evolution,” said Peter Markov, a virologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine."
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Sources
Carl Zimmer, “Omicron, Now 2 Years Old, Is Not Done With Us Yet”, New York Times, (Nov. 21, 2023)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/COVID-19_variants
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COVID-19 variants
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