PAXboy
According to the bmj there are already 4000 variants of this virus which would mean around 14 announcements a day. The paper about this variant was only signed off by scientists on Friday but was first spotted in September as just another mutation.
SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus, and mutations arise naturally as the virus replicates. Many thousands of mutations have already arisen, but only a very small minority are likely to be important and to change the virus in an appreciable way. COG-UK says that there are currently around 4000 mutations in the spike
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4857