![]() The question of Omicron’s origins is of more than academic importance. “It just came out of nowhere,” says Darren Martin, a computational biologist at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Omicron is so different from earlier variants, such as Alpha and Delta, that evolutionary virologists estimate its closest-known genetic ancestor probably dates back to more than a year ago, some time after mid-2020 (ref. Instead, the variant has an unusual array of mutations, which it evolved entirely outside the view of researchers. There’s no transparent path of transmission linking Omicron to its predecessors. ![]() Scientists have tracked it in more than 120 countries, but remain puzzled by a key question: where did Omicron come from? Little more than two months after it was first spotted in South Africa, the Omicron variant of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has spread around the world faster than any previous versions. ![]()
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