How you can be infected with multiple Covid strains at the same time amid Vic’s latest wave

A major study has revealed people can be infected with multiple Covid strains simultaneously, as the latest Victorian hospitalisation and death figures in the state’s current wave are released.

It’s possible to be infected with multiple Covid strains at the same time

Australian public health expert Professor Deborah Lupton this week tweeted a study of more than two million SARS-CoV-2 samples in Europe had found people could be infected with more than one Covid variant simultaneously.

It comes as Victoria’s most recent Covid data shows 294 people a day were hospitalised with Covid in the past week, with 11 in intensive care.

In the most recent 28-day reporting period, 157 Victorians died of the virus.

The figures are lower than last week, with the latest wastewater testing also showing decreasing Covid viral loads in Victorian metropolitan and regional wastewater.

The highly infectious JN. 1 strain (a sublineage of BA. 2.86) remains the dominant in the state.

It’s possible to be infected with multiple Covid strains at once. Picture: David Crosling

The major, international Covid co-infection study, published in Nature Communications this week, states: “Due to the relatively high mutation rate of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, numerous variants emerged since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. As diverse variants from different lineages may circulate simultaneously, there is a chance of an individual being infected by two (or more) variants (strains) at the same time, defined here as co-infection. The first co-infection cases were reported as early as mid-late 2020, and since then increasing evidence suggests, that co-infections occur frequently … elevated severity was observed in some case studies but co-infection was also found in a patient with mild symptoms.”

It said researchers from America, France, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil and Costa Rica had performed a systematic search for samples with evidence of two or more strains present, mainly focusing on variants of concern.