This is
NOT the first time this was noticed. There were
many occurrences where simultaneous infection from two variants in a person was reported from Brazil and elsewhere since January 2021..
The
US first reported a Hybrid virus resulting from
such a person.
These co-infections seemed to have no effect on the severity of patients’ illness. In the present case the patient is quite old and succumbed to the disease.
It can happen with any virus. There are many instances where a person can get infected with two strains of common Influenza.
RNA viruses like influenza , Hepatitis C usually generate a relatively large number of errors each time they replicate and thus cause other variants that have different genetic sequences.
When the US first reported the case - last February -, this is the
reply I posted on that thread as
an explanation how a Hybrid virus can be created.....
"It's a
recombination event of two
different lineages. First suspected early Feb 2021.
PS: It can happen if a person is
infected with two variants simultaneously, then the enzyme that replicates the genome is prone to
slipping off the RNA strand it is
copying and jump to the other, combining
different elements of each genome to create a hybrid virus."
Just because News media reports something, no need to go into panic mode. They can turn any old event into another new sensational event.
