What is Deltacron and how dangerous it is?

A new strain of Covid-19 has been confirmed in multiple locations around the world. The new variant Deltacron combines aspects of both its Delta and Omicron predecessors.

The Deltacron variant has been found in countries including France, the US, the UK, Denmark and the Netherlands.

Deltacron is a "recombinant" virus, mixing aspects of two separate variants. Omicron is currently the globally dominant COVID-19 variant, while Delta, which swept the world last year, was renowned as the most severe variant to date. A combination of Delta's severity and Omicron's transmissibility might sound like a nightmare scenario.

In many countries, as restrictions lift and freedoms are restored, there’s a general feeling that the pandemic is over. Deltacron’s story begins in mid-February, when scientists at the Institut Pasteur in Paris uploaded a genetic sequence of the coronavirus that looked very different from  previous sequences.

It’s not unusual for viruses to mix and match parts of themselves if two different viruses infect one cell. This is called "recombination", as one virus combines parts of its genetic sequence with parts from another related virus as it assembles copies of itself. It appears to happen at random during viral replication.

However, when there’s a transfer of power from one viral variant to another – with one variant becoming less common and another more so, meaning both are circulating in the population and there’s a chance for them to simultaneously infect people – the chance of recombination happening increases. This will have been the situation as omicron emerged to displace delta as the most dominant form worldwide.

A US epidemiologist and health economist has warned that Deltacron is “inevitably surging” – just when authorities were beginning to relax. 

However, the World Health Organisation has said Deltacron is almost as infectious as measles, and it appears to have similar symptoms to those of Omicron. 

A UK government study also recently investigated the top symptoms associated with Covid. The ZOE Covid symptom study found that the illnesses will slightly differ depending on whether you have been vaccinated or not, but that the main symptoms include headaches, runny nose, sneezing, sore throat, loss of smell and persistent cough.