The omikron variant of the coronavirus has spines that fit suspiciously well on mouse cells. That makes it plausible that omikron jumped to humans from mice living in the wild, Chinese scientists write in an analysis published Thursday. That writes The morning.
The study authors emphasized that the mouse theory is just that, one theory, one of many that have been posited so far about how omicron might have evolved.
But if it were true, it could have far-reaching consequences. After all, if mutated variants can appear via animals, fighting Covid becomes considerably more complicated.
The coronavirus is known to infect other animal species quite easily. For example, the virus circulates among deer in the US, the Brazilian gamma variant can also infect mice and monkeys, felines and even hippos sometimes become infected in zoos, as happened in the Antwerp Zoo.
