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    Coronavirus FAQ: Help me with omicron vocab. What's immune evasion? Epistasis?

    The emergence of this new variant of concern has brought a new vocabulary into daily news reports. We asked experts to help define the terms you're being bombarded with.
    by Sheila Eldred Dec 03, 2021 4 minutes
    A 3D-generated image of the coronavirus variant of concern known as omicron. The little bumps are spike proteins (see definition below).

    Each week, we answer frequently asked questions about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." See an archive of our FAQs here.

    When I'm reading about the new omicron variant, I feel like I need a medical degree. What does "immune evasion" mean, exactly? Virus Neutralization Assay?! Help!

    We get it: COVID-19 news happens fast, and those of us without a medical degree can feel a little lost. So we turned to three COVID-wise experts — , assistant professor of adult and pediatric infectious diseases at Baylor, vice chair of practice in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the Mayo Clinic — to help us translate some of the terms you're likely to run across.

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