Category talk:Variants of SARS-CoV-2

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Medicine

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Viruses

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Isolate

The term isolate means, a specific sample taken and the virus isolated from there in order to test or sequence it. It is totally unspecific regarding the question if it was a strain, variant or whatever, because it is in no way relative to other "isolates". In any genomic databases they collect data of different isolates. Only thereafter one could compare them and see the differences and decide if it is a strain or variant or whatever. --Manorainjan 15:20, 27 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Text on category page

The enormous explanation section at the top that explains why the category is named the way it is, is an odd thing to have on the category page, as it links directly to an article talk page. This seems like it should be a talk page infobox, for editors, and not on the user facing subjectpage for the readership. -- 70.31.205.108 (talk) 16:29, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I thought the same and have moved it here. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 12:36, 7 February 2021 (UTC).[reply]

Variant vs. strain

There is no universally accepted definition for the terms "strain", "variant", and "isolate" in the virology community, and most virologists simply copy the usage of terms from others. [...] According to Van Regenmortel, a (natural) virus strain is a "variant of a given virus that is recognizable because it possesses some unique phenotypic characteristics that remain stable under natural conditions" [emphasis added by the authors (van Regenmortel et al.)].^[1] Such "unique phenotypic characteristics" are biological properties different from the compared reference virus, such as unique antigenic properties, host range or the signs of disease it causes. Importantly, as Van Regenmortel points out, a virus variant with a simple "difference in genome sequence…is not given the status of a separate strain since there is no recognizable distinct viral phenotype" [...].^[2]

As of late December 2020, Talk:Variant of Concern 202012/01 § Please do not call it a strain. (variant, mutation, change) seems to suggest that general consensus on Wikipedia (although there is not much of it on this topic) is that "variant" is preferred for very specific subtypes of SARS-CoV-2—i.e., the ones in this category.^[3]

References

^ van Regenmortel, M.H.V. (2007). "Virus species and virus identification: past and current controversies". Infection, Genetics and Evolution. 7 (1): 133–144. doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(11)70271-7. PMID 16713373. Quoted by Kuhn et al. (2012).
^ Kuhn, Jens H.; et al. (2012). "Virus nomenclature below the species level: a standardized nomenclature for natural variants of viruses assigned to the family Filoviridae". Archives of Virology. 158 (1): 301–311. doi:10.1007/s00705-012-1454-0. ISSN 0304-8608. PMC 3535543. PMID 23001720. Cited by User:Pol098 at Talk:Variant of Concern 202012/01 § Please do not call it a strain. (variant, mutation, change)
^ As of late December 2020, the only dialogues about variant vs. strain are at Talk:Variant of Concern 202012/01 § Please do not call it a strain. (variant, mutation, change) and Talk:Cluster 5 § No category for strains? (as per a search for "variant" "strain").

[thelancet-1] van Regenmortel, M.H.V. (2007). "Virus species and virus identification: past and current controversies". Infection, Genetics and Evolution. 7 (1): 133–144. doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(11)70271-7. PMID 16713373. Quoted by Kuhn et al. (2012).

[2] Kuhn, Jens H.; et al. (2012). "Virus nomenclature below the species level: a standardized nomenclature for natural variants of viruses assigned to the family Filoviridae". Archives of Virology. 158 (1): 301–311. doi:10.1007/s00705-012-1454-0. ISSN 0304-8608. PMC 3535543. PMID 23001720. Cited by User:Pol098 at Talk:Variant of Concern 202012/01 § Please do not call it a strain. (variant, mutation, change)

[3] As of late December 2020, the only dialogues about variant vs. strain are at Talk:Variant of Concern 202012/01 § Please do not call it a strain. (variant, mutation, change) and Talk:Cluster 5 § No category for strains? (as per a search for "variant" "strain").

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