A new variant of coronavirus has been identified and named Omicron. The question is: should we be worried?

This video is a low-down on what we know about the Omicron variant, and should have a slightly longer shelf-life because it’s also a guide to understanding what questions to ask when the next new variant is discovered. I may have missed the mark slightly with guessing what Greek letter they’d use, but I hope the rest of it will stand the test of time… :)


Video chapters

00:00 The new (not Nu) variant
01:47 Identifying variants
03:55 Understanding variants
08:12 Stopping variants


Sources and further reading

Heavily mutated Omicron variant puts scientists on alert from Nature News https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158...
My Twitter thread about Omicron, which is mainly a collection of other informative threads   / 1463905858174259210  
The variant was first flagged up online on GitHub! In spite of the awful circumstances, it’s really cool that this science is being done so openly https://github.com/cov-lineages/pango...
Important thread from South African epidemiologist, Tulio de Oliveira   / 1463911554538160130  
Press conference from South Africa about what we know so far    • WATCH LIVE | Urgent briefing on lates...  
FAQ on Omicron from South African public health experts https://www.nicd.ac.za/frequently-ask...
The mutations in Omicron https://covariants.org/variants/21K
Thread about the worrying mutations in the spike protein from Jeffrey Barrett   / 1463975708770897923  
Vaccine statistics via the excellent Our World in Data. Get the latest numbers here: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/...
Botswana vs Spain sequencing statistic spotted by Theo Sanderson   / 1463568873844785155  


And finally…

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