Reports of an alleged hybrid coronavirus mutation, dubbed "Deltacron", reportedly discovered in a Cyprus lab, was the latest cause of worry for the internet, already fatigued by two years of the pandemic and the third wave, caused by the Omicron variant.
Industrialist Anand Mahindra, not the one to miss out on internet trends, on Monday offered his two bits on “Deltacron”.
“So even Covid 19 understands Jugaad and Jugalbandhi,” he tweeted.
Soon after the Omicron variant emerged, the business tycoon shared the poster of a 1963 Italian film titled “Omicron”. Mahindra, 66, regularly shares his insights and opinion on topical issues on Twitter.
The Mahindra Group chief, who has over eight million followers on Twitter, is among the active business leaders on the social media platform.
“Deltacron”, according to Cyprus media, has "the genetic background of the Delta variant along with some of the mutations of Omicron".
Experts, however, said that “Deltacron” is most likely the result of a lab contamination, and not a new worrying variant.
While it is possible for coronaviruses to genetically combine, it is rare, and scientists analysing the discovery of so-called "Deltacron" say it is unlikely.
"The Cypriot 'Deltacron' sequences reported by several large media outlets look to be quite clearly contamination," Tom Peacock, a virologist with the infectious diseases department at Imperial College London, tweeted over the weekend.
Jeffrey Barrett, the head of the Covid-19 Genomics Initiative at Britain's Wellcome Sanger Institute, said the alleged mutations are located on a part of the genome that is vulnerable to error in certain sequencing procedures.
Last week, unverified reports emerged of a "flurona" or "flurone" virus circulating - a combination of the flu and the coronavirus - which the World Health Organization (WHO) dismissed Monday.
"Let's not use words like Deltacron, flurona or flurone. Please," tweeted Maria van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the WHO.
"These words imply combination of viruses/variants and this is not happening," she said.
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