2021/12/08 by J. Craig Phillips, Phillips, J. C.
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Medicine · #Bioinformatics and Genomic Networks #Evolution and Genetic Dynamics #SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2112.04915
Improvement of protein function by evolution (natural selection) is expected on general grounds, but even with the modern database positive proof has remained a difficult problem for theory. Here we extend our recent analysis of the evolution of CoV-1 to much more contagious CoV-2, to Omicron, which appears to be qualitatively different from other recent strains like Delta. Overall the synchronized dynamics of Omicron is more elaborate than CoV-2 or its variants like Delta. The surprising result is that while Omicron could be more contagious than even Delta, it is probably much less dangerous