New important research shows early ‘evolutionary paths’ of COVID-19 in humans – as the infection spread from Wuhan out to Europe and North America – using genetic network techniques. The research revealed three distinct ‘variants’ of COVID-19, consisting of clusters of closely related lineages, which they label ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’. Variant ‘A’, most closely related to the virus found in both bats and pangolins, is described as ‘the root of the outbreak’. Type ‘B’ is derived from ‘A’, separated by two mutations, then ‘C’ is in turn a “daughter” of ‘B’.
Link to article: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/04/07/2004999117