‘Deltacron’ is NOT outcompeting any Covid strain yet

Reports that a hybrid Covid variant of Omicron and Delta is spreading across the world are not yet a cause for concern, scientists have said. 

Fears about ‘Deltacron’ were raised again this week after the World Health Organization announced the super-mutant had been spotted in France, Holland and Denmark.  

But UK Health Security Agency bosses who have been tracking the strain for weeks have spotted just 32 domestic cases. 

While the hybrid variant has shown it can spread between people, experts and health authorities have insisted it is not growing at concerning rate and is unlikely to replace Omicron. 

Professor Ian Jones, a virologist at the University of Reading, said it would be hard to see how the hybrid could outcompete the now dominant BA.2 subvariant of Omicron.

‘Omicron replaced Delta so a hybrid is a step back and unlikely to be ‘better’ in any appreciable way,’ he told the The Times. 

He added that unless monitoring shows that it could be a threat ‘it doesn’t warrant particular attention’. 

Professor Lawrence Young, a microbiologist from the University of Warwick, told MailOnline it was ‘unlikely’ to result in a rise in severe disease.  

‘Given waning immunity in the population and the removal of all restrictions, it is likely that Deltacron will spread but is unlikely to result in severe disease,’ he said.

‘The BA.2 cousin of Omicron is currently spreading in the England and is more transmissible than the original Omicron variant.’

While Deltacron cases are in the UK, scientists and health officials have both said it is not a particular cause for concern (pictured commuters on the London underground last month)

He added that while we don’t know how Deltacron will compete with BA.2, there was no room for complacency and underlined the importance of continuing Covid vaccination and getting the elderly and vulnerable a second booster.

UKHSA have said it will continue to monitor Deltacron closely as it does with all variants.

So far there has been no evidence that the hybrid variant make people more severely ill than other variants and likewise there are no signs Covid vaccines are less effective against it.

Even if Deltacron cases were to start to increase rapidly, the UK has high levels of immunity against both its parent strains thanks to high uptake of vaccines and high levels of natural immunity following repeated waves of the pandemic. 

Official data indicates nine in 10 eligible Britons have had at least one Covid vaccine and two thirds have had three.

Half of people in England are thought to have already had Covid, according to central estimates. 

All in, the Office for National Statistics estimates virtually every person in Briton has antibodies against the virus, which indicates some degree of protection. 

The hybrid of Omicron and Delta first emerged January 7, in a person who had both variants at the same time. 

Such combinations of different viruses can occur in such circumstances in a process called  viral recombination.

The coronavirus is made up of genetic material called RNA and, to reproduce, it must force the body to read this RNA and make exact copies of it.

There are inevitably errors when this happens because it happens so fast and so often and natural processes are imperfect.

If two viruses are in the same place at once, both being duplicated by the same cells, there is a chance the RNA genes could be mixed up, just as there could be a mix-up if someone dropped two packs of cards at once and picked them all up.

However, there is no guarantee that such a new version is any more harmful or virulent than its parents. 

This week the WHO warned Deltacron was starting to spread across Europe and it is also believed to have reached the US.  

WHO officials have said they are preparing a report into Deltacron which they plan to release in the near future.