12/01/2021
What is a virus ๐ฆ variant?
A variant arises as a mistake when the virus replicated itself. The more a virus spreads the more chance it has to mutate and become a new version of the same virus, also known as a variant. Mutations and variants are not necessarily more dangerous though. The World Health Organization (WHO) looks at the evidence and can classify coronavirus variants as either a variant of interest, or a variant of concern.
A variant of interest will have two things:
genetic changes predicted by scientists to cause problems, such as the virus spreading more quickly and causing more severe illness as well as significant community transmission, or multiple clusters in multiple countries.
When the WHO is even more worried about a variant, it gets classified as a variant of concern. A variant of concern is a variant also associated with at least one of the following things, not just in theory but in practice. Increased transmissibility, more severe disease and/or decreased effectiveness of public health measures, diagnosis, vaccines or treatments.