Talk:Cluster 5

Is "cluster 5" a scientific name for the mutated variant or a popular name?

I'm no expert in this stuff, but as far as I've understood—through reading the wording from the SSI and WHO and about what a gene cluster is—I understand it as if naming the mutation only "cluster 5" is a not a scientific but popular thing; if anyone knows a lot about this stuff and that is the case, feel free to add the "popularly" in "Cluster 5" is the name given to a mutated variant ..." or something to that effect. —Biscuit-in-Chief :-) ^{(/tɔːk/ – /ˈkɒntɹɪbs/)} 09:34, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

I'd say there is no need for a "popularly" label, since even if it's not a scientific name, it was officially used in the Danish government press release about the matter if I'm not mistaken. I do understand that whether it's official or scientific doesn't change whether or not we should use it on Wikipedia because of WP:CommonName, I'm just saying that given how it was used in official press releases, there's nothing "popular" about it that deserves a label or disclaimer. More scientific mutation names can be and are given later. LjL (talk) 19:19, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

No category for strains?

There seems to be no category for all the countless strains of SARS-Cov-2. D614G is simply forwarded to the disease and not to the virus article and unmentioned here. --Manorainjan 19:30, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Then make one. And change the redirect to SARS-CoV-2. If you do make a category, please call it something like "Variants of SARS-CoV-2", not "strains ...", as it is quite unclear what are variants and what are strains. In fact, you can apparently call it a "variant strain" (see WHO and CDC). Also, why should D614G be mentioned in this article? It isn't one of the defining changes of cluster 5, and isn't even mentioned in the SSI's short report on cluster 5. —Biscuit-in-Chief :-) ^{(/tɔːk/ – /ˈkɒntɹɪbs/)} 19:49, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Regarding strain vs. variant, I found this: At a briefing organised by the UK’s Science Media Centre on Tuesday, Prof Tom Connor of the School of Biosciences at Cardiff University explained: “There is one strain of coronavirus. That is Sars-Cov-2. That is the single strain, and there are variants of that strain. These are variants.” Prof Connor said the term strain is often misused. “The correct term to use is variant to describe this particular variant of concern.” With "coronavirus" I think it's reasonable to assume that he means "SARS-CoV-2". Might've changed the subject a bit there. —Biscuit-in-Chief :-) ^{(/tɔːk/ – /ˈkɒntɹɪbs/)} 19:55, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

(edit-conflict) Admittingly I would not be able to distinguish the difference between strain and variant myself, therefore I will not name a category. What I know is, that D614G is a single mutation and therefore only one part of the change from one variant or strain to the other. It means, the base pair #614 got changed from D to G. And there where several such mutations within one step. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8eAFJwekSo --Manorainjan 20:02, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

So, in that case it would be Category:SARS-CoV-2_Variants or not? --Manorainjan 20:04, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

I'd say Category:Variants of SARS-CoV-2. —Biscuit-in-Chief :-) ^{(/tɔːk/ – /ˈkɒntɹɪbs/)} 20:07, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

OK, done. --Manorainjan 20:23, 23 December 2020 (UTC)