sf_sf_sf t1_jdix8sr wrote on March 24, 2023 at 6:42 PM

There are definitely animal reservoirs of older variants. Whitetail deer, rats, and other animal species have their own Covid epidemic of older variants. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a spill over event from one of those sometime in the future.

Matrix17 t1_jdj72qw wrote on March 24, 2023 at 7:46 PM

Difference being that the population at large might have some immunity to a variant like that this time

Unless it's wildly different

[deleted] t1_jdjklmb wrote on March 24, 2023 at 9:16 PM

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Booty_Bumping t1_jdjougw wrote on March 24, 2023 at 9:46 PM

Evidence is now leaning towards the possibility that it came from an immunocompromised person who had a very long infection - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35739343/

sf_sf_sf t1_jdjstg7 wrote on March 24, 2023 at 10:14 PM

There were a couple: Dec 2021 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8702434/

but also a counterpoint https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9111207/

a run down of 3 theories (un detected evolution and transmission, long infection of an AIDS patient, or animal spillover) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8757324/

A good web search is "omicron mouse origin" and you'll see a bunch of papers and articles that are interesting

[deleted] t1_jdja8in wrote on March 24, 2023 at 8:07 PM

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[deleted] t1_jdk8nai wrote on March 25, 2023 at 12:11 AM

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