What’s in a name? Debunking the SA variant myth TULIO DE OLIVEIRA

THE 501Y.V2 variant has been widely reported as a South African variant. However, we are not even sure if this arose in South Africa. In a piece in Science, Prof Salim Abdool Karim, Glaudina Loots and I highlighted that calling it the South African variant is not only wrong but also discriminatory.

Being transparent in the use of science in the pandemic response has been a positive side of South Africa. Recently, our president was invited to the G7 meeting with the comment that South African scientists have been leading the science on Covid-19 in the world. Furthermore, our recent results, published in Nature, pointed that the variant discovered in South Africa elutes high level