Boris Johnson says Omicron to bring 'tidal wave' of cases
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Researchers have warned that the Omicron variant “exceeds” all other coronavirus mutations in its potential capability to evade the protection gained from previous infection or vaccination. News of this new variant has sent shockwaves around the world, as governments globally introduce new public health restrictions in order to curb the spread of the virus.
In the study published in Emerging Microbes & Infection, researchers found evidence to suggest that although the strategy of getting a third-dose booster shot can “significantly boost immunity”, the protection from Omicron by these vaccines “may be compromised”.
However, the scientists admitted that more research is needed to better understand this.
According to Youchun Wang, the study’s lead author and Senior Research Fellow from the National Institutes for Food and Drug Control in China, the results support recent findings in South Africa which highlight Omicron was “easy to evade immunity”.
Wang said: “We found the large number of mutations of the Omicron variant did cause significant changes of neutralization sensitivity against people who had already had Covid.”
“However, the average ED50 (protection level) against Omicron is still higher than the baseline, which indicated there is still some protection effect can be observed.”
Dr Wang, who is the former chairman of the Medical Virology and Vice Chairman of the Medical Microbiology and Immunology of the Chinese Medical Association, called for caution about the new variant.
He warned that because the antibody protection that is usually gained from previous infection or vaccination decreases gradually over a period of six months, Omicron “may be able to escape immunity even better”.
The researchers predict that while “a third-dose enhancement strategy can significantly boost immunity”, the “protection from Omicron may be compromised”.
The expert team of 11 scientists looked at 28 serum samples from patients recovering from the original strain of coronavirus.
They then tested these against Omicron samples, as well as the four other “variants of concern”, including Delta, and two variants that were marked as “of interest”.
Dr Wang said: “This study verifies the enhanced immune escape of Omicron variant, which sounds the alarm to the world and has important implications for the public health planning and the development of matching strategies”.
The researchers cautioned that more studies were needed to fully understand this new variant, including ones conducted “in real-world studies”.
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Specifically, they need to know whether it can “escape from the vaccine-elicited immunity to cause more severe disease and death”.
The authors stated: “It needs to be re-evaluated whether the antibodies can still be effective against the Omicron variant.
“The exact impact to human protection may be influenced by more factors such as the infectivity of Omicron variant relative to other variants to human populations and the viral fitness of Omicron once the humans are infected.
“More population studies including the level of immune protection and symptoms among people infected with Omicron are needed to fully establish the global impact of Omicron to the control of COVID-19 pandemic.”
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