Evidence of the virulence of the Omicron variant is trickling in, but the first “signals” are “a little encouraging,” according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, White House adviser on the health crisis.
“Obviously in South Africa Omicron is spreading more,” he said in an interview with American television on Sunday, referring to the “vertical” curve in the number of new cases in that country. .
South Africa had 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 on November 25, and more than 10,000 as of Sunday.
Data from this country, the first to identify the variant, seems to show that patients infected with Omicron develop symptoms of lesser severity. “We see a much shorter average length of stay, 2.8 days for patients admitted to COVID-19 wards over the past two weeks compared to an average length of stay of 8.5 days over the past two weeks. Last 18 months, ”South African medical services said.
They stressed, however, that the South African population was particularly young, and that severe cases could be expected in the coming weeks.
A preliminary, unpaired study leads researchers to believe that the mutations identified in Omicron are also found in cold viruses, which could explain why this new variant seems to be transmitted more easily and to cause milder symptoms.
“It is plausible that the Omicron insertion may have evolved in individuals infected” with both COVID-19 and a common cold virus, note the American researchers.
Scientists are still busy determining the ability of vaccines to protect the population against this new strain. A first study has shown that this variant is more capable of bypassing the immunity acquired by an infection than the previous variants. South African researchers analyzed 35,670 re-infections identified in nearly 2.8 million people who tested positive and concluded that the risk of contracting COVID-19 a second time during the wave associated with Omicron was three times greater compared to waves related to Beta and Delta variants.
The World Health Organization said last Friday that no deaths linked to the Omicron variant had yet been recorded. The situation should change quickly, because the list of countries that have noted the presence of Omicron on their territory continues to grow every day. European health authorities have already warned that Omicron would become the dominant strain “within a few months” on the Old Continent.
This text is taken from our newsletter “The Coronavirus Mail” of December 6, 2021. To subscribe, click here.