The new Omicron variant of the virus causing COVID-19, which was classified as “worrying” by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday, raises concerns as far as Quebec, where four experts polled by The duty warn that the province could be adversely affected by this variant, despite its high vaccination rate. State of play.
What do we know about this new variant?
The B.1.1.529 variant, dubbed Omicron on Friday, has been reported to WHO in recent days by South Africa, which is currently grappling with a rapid increase in the number of positive COVID-19 cases reported daily. This new variant already monopolizes the vast majority of new cases detected in the province of Gauteng, the most urbanized in the country, where the administrative capital of the country, Pretoria is located. A first case was also reported in Hong Kong, as well as in Israel and Belgium, prompting the countries of the European Union, then Canada, to suspend the arrival of travelers who have visited seven countries in the south of the Africa where this variant is said to be in circulation.
“Even by banning flights with South Africa, there are people who pass through other countries and who bring the virus”, however, underlines the professor at the School of Public Health of the University of Montreal Roxane Borges Da Silva. It is therefore only a matter of time, according to her, before a first case of this variant is detected in Quebec.
Why is the Omicron variant worrying?
We still know very little about this new variant, but three factors will have to be analyzed by specialists in the coming days, indicates the medical officer at the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ) Gaston De Serres.
Like the Delta variant detected in India in the fall of 2020, the Omicron variant could be more contagious than the original strain of the virus, and therefore help accelerate new cases of COVID-19. This new variant could also prove to be more “virulent”, that is to say, cause more severe symptoms of the disease in infected people.
In Quebec, however, what raises the most concern is the possibility that this variant is able to “escape vaccine immunity”, which is not yet known, adds Mr. De. Greenhouses.
Unlike South Africa, where less than 24% of the population has received two doses of vaccine against the virus, it is rather 88% of eligible Quebecers who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 so far.
“If we have a virus that can escape vaccine immunity, it becomes problematic. It could then wreak havoc even in a highly vaccinated population, ”warns the expert.
“There are all kinds of factors that mean that we could” eat a slap “, launches the expert in immunization at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute André Veillette, who believes that Quebecers should think about it. twice before organizing ” parties Christmas’ this year.
Could this variant supplant the Delta variant on a global scale?
On Friday, a backgrounder written by experts from the National Reference Laboratory in Belgium reported that this new variant may be even more transmissible than the Delta variant, which has quickly become dominant globally – including in Quebec. – after its detection in India last year.
This new Omicron variant also has around thirty mutations on its S protein, a “significant” number, confirms the virologist and professor at the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Quebec in Montreal Benoit Barbeau. “It suggests that there is a certain flexibility in this protein that allows it to change, to transform,” he notes.
“It will go very quickly before [ce nouveau variant] becomes dominant ”, sees Roxane Borgès Da Silva.
Should the arrival of this new variant, as the holiday season approaches, encourage the government of Quebec to expand access to the third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine?
According to Mme Borgès Da Silva, Quebec would have every interest in following in the footsteps of France, where the booster dose will be open on Saturday to all adults aged 18 and over who have received their second injection of a vaccine against COVID-19 at least five months ago. “Let’s not wait for immunity to wane before relaunching a vaccination campaign for a third dose,” she said.
“We don’t have to have a disaster to prevent it. So I think we are there, ”also confirms researcher André Veillette. The pharmaceutical company Moderna also announced on Friday, in a press release, its intention to develop a specific booster dose for this new variant.
Meanwhile, many less fortunate countries are struggling to vaccinate their populations in large numbers against COVID-19. However, many scientists believe that the pandemic must be tackled on a global scale if we want to prevent the emergence of new variants.
“It is clear that with the level of production that exists in the world now, if all the rich countries want to give a third dose to everyone, it will not go to countries that have not even given a first dose to their citizens, ”says Gaston De Serres, of the INSPQ.
Benoit Barbeau believes that it would be preferable, before thinking of offering “mega-protection” against COVID-19 to Canadian citizens, to distribute more doses to many countries, such as South Africa, which continue to have a very low vaccination coverage. “We must focus on global immunization coverage,” he says.