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Booty_Bumping t1_jdjo2k0 wrote

Reply to comment by Demiansky in What happened to the old COVID variants, like Delta? Could they come back? by number1dork

Delta is not the ancestor of Omicron. Delta did not "evolve into" Omicron — it doesn't even have alpha variant in its lineage.

Another way this analogy breaks down is that humans have sexual reproduction whereas viruses are almost entirely asexual (with rare gene transfer exceptions). Neanderthal genes can enter humans because they are sexually compatible, but viruses have to rely on convergent evolution.

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Demiansky t1_jdkfryf wrote

Well, no, not every strain of the virus was on some kind of conveyor belt of evolution anymore than the hominid family tree. But all of the earlier, less virulent variants are the direct ancestors of modern variants.

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