, drew academics and researchers from across the continent, as well as the UK, US, Japan, Singapore and Australia. Many were meeting face-to-face for the first time, after nearly three years of Zoom call collaboration trying to understand the pandemic during the depths of lockdown. The high death tolls of 2020 and 2021 may have subsided, but the coronavirus is still circulating widely in a blizzard of Omicron sub-variants. South Africa's years of expertise in tracking the HIV virus has meant the country has latterly been at the forefront of spotting new coronavirus variants such as these. Omicron and its bewildering alphabet soup of descendents seem to have turned out to be mild, at least compared to their viral predecessors, and at the same time a mixture of vaccinations and earlier infections are credited with giving most people protection against severe disease. Back to square one? That had bred a mood of cautious optimism among the attendees. But for many at the gathering, one of the most pressing topics was whether a major new variant, set to be called Pi, might arise which could put us back to square one. Professor Wendy Barclay, a virologist at Imperial College and member of the government's advisory committee, Sage, said: 'Are we going to see variants arise or future versions of this virus arise which come with more severe outcomes than currently the omicroms do, either because they escape some level of control that the vaccines give, or that they change inherently? I still don't think that's resolved. I still think we are in a phase where there's an awful lot that we don't know.' The most recent variants to have emerged are not driving transmission or disease in the sa){kind=link}
As coronavirus circulates in a blizzard of Omicron sub-variants, experts fear more virulent strains could be on the horizon
The third anniversary of the emergence of an obscure new coronavirus in the Chinese city of Wuhan is coming up fast.
An outbreak that first made just a few sentences on the foreign pages, quickly burgeoned into a global pandemic that upended almost every aspect of life and still has profound repercussions.
More than 16 million people are estimated to have died worldwide during the first two years, with trillions of pounds spent, economies battered and millions of jobs lost.
Thankfully, for all the disruption, the past year has seen a return to normal life, for many at least, as the world desperately tries to put the pandemic behind it.