Deltacron covid symptoms to look out for

Scientists said they have identified Deltacron, a coronavirus strain containing genetic material from both the Delta and Omicron variants.

"Delta basically grabbed omicron's spike protein," Jeremy Kamil, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Louisiana State University Health Shreveport, told NBC News. "This is essentially delta trying to hang on by plagiarizing from omicron."

It's worth noting that Deltacron has not been flagged as a major concern and is classed as rare.

William Lee, the chief science officer at Helix, said: "The fact that there is not that much of it, that even the two cases we saw were different, suggests that it's probably not going to elevate to a variant of concern level."

Sajid Javid, Health Secretary, also said the so-called Deltacron variant is "not of particular concern" after only a "handful" of cases have been identified in the UK.

Asked about cases of Deltacron in the UK, Mr Javid told BBC Breakfast: "I think there's only a handful of cases here in the UK; it's not something that's of particular concern to us at this point in time.

"We do keep the situation under review on a daily basis, but the dominant variant in the UK – 99.9 per cent of infections are Omicron infections.

"And whilst the rate has gone up modestly in the last few days, that's to be expected as we are now open as a country and there's more social mixing, but there's nothing in the data at this point in time that gives us any cause for concern."

What are the symptoms to look out for?

Using data from the Zoe COVID Symptom Study, Business Insider pulled together a list of the following symptoms:

• Runny nose.
• Headache
• Fatigue
• Sneezing
• Sore throat
• Persistent cough
• Hoarse voice
• Chills or shivers
• Fever
• Dizziness
• Brain fog
• Muscle pains
• Loss of smell
• Chest pain

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

UK health officials have identified a small number of cases in the UK but have said that the variant is "not exhibiting a growth rate that is unusual or alarming".

Javid told Times Radio that officials continue to monitor infections, case numbers, hospital admissions and hospital capacities.

"Taking all of that together, we remain in an overall very good position," he said.

"We're the most open country in Europe and that's happened because of the country's approach and the British people's approach to vaccination.

"But also the support that we have from all the different treatments that the NHS is now able to offer and on our testing offer where we focus very much on the most vulnerable."

He added: "The most important thing that we can all be doing personally is to make sure we are vaccinated, and whilst it's great that when it comes to boosters that we have eight out of 10 adults that are eligible boosted – which is fantastic to see, one of the highest rates in the world – there are still there two out of 10 that are not, and it'd be great for those people to come forward not just only to protect themselves, but their communities too."

The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered.

• To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here.
  
• To sign the petition click here.
  
• If you would like to donate then please click here for our GoFundMe page.