what is the meaning of "coronavirus being converged"?

Question

[2001linana]

I was reading an article and encounter this sentence. "Mutational barcoding established that North American coronaviruses harbor genome signature different from coronaviruses prevalent in Europe and Asia, which have converged over time." I was confused a bit. What is exactly "coronavirus being convergent" ? Many comments are appreciated.

Answer 1

[gb]

I think "converged over time" in this case means that over time the coronaviruses in Europe and Asia "came together" and show a more similar mutational profile compared to North America.

Maybe someone else can elaborate this on a epidemiologic aspect. Why this happens. Is the immunsystem of people in North America different or are there more traveling people between Europe and Asia.

EDIT: gisaid is always an interesting source https://www.gisaid.org/epiflu-applications/phylodynamics/