News > Explained: What’s the Mu variant? And will we keep seeing more concerning variants?

Explained: What’s the Mu variant? And will we keep seeing more concerning variants?

This week the World Health Organization named a new ‘variant of interest’ of the coronavirus, called the Mu variant. Mu has changes, called mutations, which means it might be able to evade some of the protection we get from COVID vaccines.

But one reassuring element is that, despite being around since January 2021, it doesn’t seem to be outcompeting Delta, the dominant variant across most of the world.