We May Know Next Week if Omicron Evades Immunity

Dec. 7, 2021 — Studies are underway in check tubes and animals to find out whether or not the brand new Omicron variant of the coronavirus can slip previous the immune safety of vaccination or a earlier an infection.

Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, stated the outcomes from checks of disabled and dwell Omicron viruses blended with the serum — the clear a part of the blood — of vaccinated or beforehand contaminated individuals ought to be prepared subsequent week.

The outcomes of these checks ought to give us a greater concept about how properly protected Americans could also be in opposition to the brand new risk of this extremely mutated variant.

Fauci, talking at a briefing of the White House COVID-19 Response Team, says knowledge reveals the Omicron variant has swiftly develop into the primary trigger of recent COVID-19 infections in South Africa.

“Strongly suggesting a dominant capability of that variant over others,” he stated.

The state of affairs in South Africa just isn’t precisely the identical as what’s occurring within the U.S. South Africa has not been capable of vaccinate as many individuals because the U.S. has. Even given these variations, Fauci says the image in South Africa says lots about Omicron’s runaway unfold and its potential to trigger new circumstances to spike on this nation.

Those new circumstances is probably not as severe as we’ve seen with Alpha or Delta. Early knowledge on severity is encouraging.

“It’s too early to be able to determine the precise severity of disease … but it appears with the cases we are seeing, we are not seeing a very severe profile of disease,” he stated.

Fauci stated the hospitalization price for omicron circumstances appears to be decrease than it has been below earlier variants, and sufferers who do find yourself within the hospital appear to be much less more likely to want oxygen.

But he cautioned that this knowledge could possibly be biased as a result of the earliest circumstances in South Africa have been reported in youthful individuals, who are likely to have much less severe circumstances anyway.

“Hopefully, in the next few weeks we’ll get a much clearly picture,” he stated.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, stated groups working to trace the unfold of Omicron after the big Anime 2021 convention in New York City have been capable of contact about 35,000 of the 53,000 individuals who have been estimated to have attended.

“Data from this investigation will likely provide some of the earliest looks in this country of the transmissibility of this variant,” she stated.

In the meantime, Omicron isn’t ready. Sor far, it has proven up in 17 states and greater than 50 nations around the globe.