Mu variant eradicated from US, COVID data shows

The mu variant of the coronavirus – which was greatly feared by scientists months ago – did not represent any new cases of COVID-19 in recent data, according to data from the epidemic.info.

The variant was considered to be more transmissible than the delta variant and had the ability to evade vaccines, as I wrote for the Deseret News. In fact, the World Health Organization said the variant was “of interest” and should be watched.

• “The mu strain needs to be studied further to confirm whether it will prove to be more contagious, more deadly or more resistant to current vaccines and treatments,” according to CNBC.

But, according to Epidemic.info, there have been no new cases of the mu variant in the United States, a major sign that the prevalence of the variant may be waning.

• Of course, there is a possibility that the variant will return to the United States if someone outside of the United States with the variant infects an American. But for now, the threat of the mu variant appears to have been quelled.

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical officer on COVID-19, said in a Q&A video in early September that the delta variant “outperformed and replaced” all other coronavirus variants. Basically, delta was infecting so many people that other variants couldn’t spread, including alpha, beta, and gamma variants.

• “Of these four worrying variants, the delta is by far the most transmissible,” Van Kerkhove said. “If the delta is identified or begins to circulate in a country where there is beta … (delta) quickly replaced the variant there.”

Dr Anna Durbin, professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told Newsweek that variants often fight for supremacy. The delta variant stopped the growth of the mu and lambda variants.

• “These viruses are all competing with each other for the advantage to be the one that survives,” Durbin told Newsweek. “We know that the lambda variant has some of the same mutations as the delta variant which we believe will allow it to be more transmissible, so it would be difficult to compete with the delta variant.”