By November 2021, nearly two years after the coronavirus emerged in Wuhan and spread across the world, the surprises seemed to be over. Researchers in Botswana and South Africa alerted the world that a highly mutated version of the virus had emerged and was spreading fast. Omicron, as the World Health Organization called the variant, swiftly overtook other forms of the virus. In the two years since its emergence, Omicron has proved to be not only staggeringly infectious, but an evolutionary marvel, challenging many assumptions virologists had before the pandemic. “It was almost like there was another pandemic,” said Adam Lauring, a virologist at the University of Michigan.

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Persons: virologists, ”, Adam Lauring Organizations: Alpha, World Health Organization, University of Michigan Locations: Wuhan, Botswana, South Africa