Waking up from my hibernation (just kidding, it was application that took up my time for the last month)
Today I would summarize some thoughts I had with JN.1, the first 2023 strain to scare me. Yet besides that I want to also say things about the general covid evolution. Chapter 1: History reviews. The pandemic was divided into three eras. Pre-Alpha was marked by gradual, pseudorandom mutations added to strain WH, Alpha-Delta marked key mutations and their ability to greatly enhance the virus, then Omicron shifted the focus to immune escape.

(The previous thread of post was simply messy so I decided to remake those, sorry for the inconvenience created) Mutation Significance List is something that I always tried to envision, in many ways, I consider this a good method of catching what direction of Covid it is evolving to. And today, I have updated this list based upon my collection 174
cov-spectrum.org/collections/174

Want to comment on a very interesting pattern of XBB, or covid as a whole that is gaining more ground recently: S:L455F+F456L mutation, or "the flip". I consider it to be most catchy mutation combo, for some obvious reason. In the famous collection 42: , "flip' appeared in multiple clans from HK.3, JD.1.1, GK, DV.7.1 etc, and those variants arise from different continents (GK from SA, HK.3 from Asia, DV.7.1 in Europe and Oceania). Also evident in this figure cov-spectrum.org/collections/42