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A comment on Some experts suggest Omicron variant may have evolved in an animal host. Parent comment

Re:Some experts suggest Omicron variant may have evolved in ... by whimsicalism on Thursday December 02, 2021 @01:35PM (#29420330)
Could it just be that testing was so bad in Africa that we never identified this strain as it was spreading in those communities until it had some breakthrough mutation that made it much more easy to spread?

I think it is telling that it was South Africa, probably one of the few SSA nations with the infrastructure to do this testing of a representative sample of their population, where this was found first.

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Re:Some experts suggest Omicron variant may have evolved in ... by dnautics on Thursday December 02, 2021 @02:01PM (#29420806)
it could be easy to find out. omicron has a very characteristic signature in the PCR test (a missing band) that I imagine makes it possible to do a retrospective analysis if you have good data records.
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Re:Some experts suggest Omicron variant may have evolved in ... by ErikCorry on Thursday December 02, 2021 @02:04PM (#29420858)
Doesn't it share that missing band with Alpha though? There's not much Alpha around these days, so it's a good signal, but if you go back in time that would confound your search.
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Re:Some experts suggest Omicron variant may have evolved in ... by dnautics on Thursday December 02, 2021 @02:07PM (#29420899)
I don't know, I wasn't aware of that (I am not an expert, just someone that reads slightly-more-scientific-than-mainstream-media dispatches, and can understand them having done a ton of molecular biology). If you can pont me to that I'd love to be enlightened.
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Re:Some experts suggest Omicron variant may have evolved in ... by ErikCorry on Thursday December 02, 2021 @03:07PM (#29421745)
Alpha (aka b.1.1.7) causes S-dropout on the PCR test: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.24.20248814v...

Omicron also causes s-dropout: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59460252

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