So here's the question we keep getting: Do I need to be worried about the Mu variant?

COVID-19 began mutating since it first emerged. It’s already undergone hundreds if not thousands of changes.

That said, the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization break down the mutations into three categories. Variants of Interest (VOI), Variants of Concern (VOC) and Variants of High Consequence.

Let me calm you down first: There are no Variants of High Consequence at this time. That would be a variant where nothing worked against it, not a vaccine or any type of medical treatment. That's the worst case scenario in a pandemic.

The WHO has nine variants of concern or interest.

The Variants of Concern in the U.S. are Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta.

But at this point, Delta is the predominant variant making up about 96% of new COVID-19 cases.

Currently, the WHO lists Mu as a Variant of Interest. It means it’s being watched closely because the genetic changes may make it easier to spread and cause more severe disease and has the potential to evade the protection of vaccines or even natural protection from previous variants. Meaning antibodies from a previous COVID infection couldn’t fight it either.

Mu is the 12th letter of the Greek alphabet. Meaning the behaviors of 12 variants have made the list to watch. Three have already been taken off the list, Theta, Zeta and Epsilon are no longer on the VOI list. But there are at least a dozen more that haven’t been named yet.

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