Study: Omicron could be more transmissible due to sharing genetic material with common cold | TheHill - The Hill

The omicron variant may have evolved from the virus associated with the common cold, researchers out of Cambridge, Mass., said in a preliminary study released Friday, which suggests the variant could be much more transmissible than previously thought.

Nference, a biomedical company, released data revealing that omicron shares similar genetic material to HCoV-229E, a human coronavirus that causes common cold symptoms.

Researchers posit that omicron evolved from an individual who was "co-infected" with Sars-CoV-2 and HCoV-229E.

Nference also compared omicron's genetic material to other Sars-CoV-2 variants, including the highly transmissible and dominant delta variant.