Joep de Ligt

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April 10, 2022

Should we worry about the XE variant? Maybe not yet, but ‘hybrids’ will become more frequent as COVID evolves

Jemma Geoghegan, University of Otago; David Welch, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau, and Joep de Ligt, ESR

Our best chance of limiting the emergence of new recombinant COVID variants is to limit the spread of infections, using public health measures to slow and suppress the virus.

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February 22, 2022

As New Zealand’s Omicron infections rise rapidly, genome surveillance is shifting gears

David Welch, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau; James Hadfield, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center; Jemma Geoghegan, University of Otago; Joep de Ligt, ESR, and Michael Bunce, ESR

Without genome sequencing, we would be blind to new variants of COVID-19. As Omicron surges in New Zealand, the sequencing focus is shifting to learning about what causes severe or long-term disease.

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February 16, 2021

Why more contagious variants are emerging now, more than a year into the COVID‑19 pandemic

David Welch, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau; Jemma Geoghegan, University of Otago; Joep de Ligt, ESR, and Nigel French, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University

The rapid increase in the number of infections is the most obvious reason why new variants of the virus have been emerging recently. Case numbers doubled in just two months at the end of 2020.

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Should we worry about the XE variant? Maybe not yet, but ‘hybrids’ will become more frequent as COVID evolves

As New Zealand’s Omicron infections rise rapidly, genome surveillance is shifting gears

Why more contagious variants are emerging now, more than a year into the COVID‑19 pandemic

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