Possible summer COVID surge? What to know about the new FLiRT variants
Possible summer COVID surge? What to know about the new FLiRT variants
The days of school closures and statewide lockdowns may be years behind us, but the threat of COVID-19 still lurks in the shadows.
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No explanation of what FLiRT stands for. A+ article s/
Because two of the three mutations in these variants are located at F456L and R346T. And they didn't mention it because that information is going to mean nothing to the vast, vast majority of people on this planet.
To the curious what these mean: a phenylalanine(F) is changed to a leucine(L) and an arginine(R) is changed to a Threonine(T). These changes occur at the 456th and 346th amino acids in the protein (I'm assuming the "spike" protein). How these changes actually matter to viral infection and spread is mostly unknown but these variants are most prominent in people actually going to their doctor or the hospital (as no one else is likely to test anymore).
So named after mutated genes - thanks