What is a COVID variant?
According to Linda Yancey, M.D., an infectious diseases expert at Memorial Hermann Hospital, a variant is just a slightly changed virus. She explains that viruses go through generations just like people do, and that, like people, each virus generation is a bit different from the one that came before.
In the case of COVID-19, the virus has mutated multiple times, resulting in variants like Alpha and Delta and several subvariants of Omicron. A mutation refers to a single change in a pathogen’s genetic code. Mutations occur frequently, but only sometimes change the characteristics of the virus.
Furthermore, specialists point out that COVID variants that can infect people better or escape immunity to the last variant are more susceptible to causing a new virus wave. Also, in some cases, variants that are different enough, or concerning enough, get special names.
Examples include Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron. Variants are further divided into subvariants with labels like XBB.1.16.6 or EG.5, also known as “Eris”—both are subvariants of Omicron.
