Health chiefs are now officially keeping tabs on a Covid variant that is a hybrid of the Omicron and Delta strains and has been spotted in the UK.
The super-mutant Deltacron is thought to have evolved in a patient who caught both variants at the same time but it is not clear if it was imported or originated in Britain.
UK Health Security Agency officials also don’t know how infectious or severe the newly evolved virus is or whether it will impact vaccine performance.
A source at the UKHSA insisted officials were ‘not concerned’ by the variant because case numbers are ‘low’.
The agency has not revealed how many times it has been spotted.