Considerable uncertainties surround the Omicron COVID-19 variant, whose mutations may lead to higher transmissibility and more cases of COVID-19 disease, the WHO said in a technical brief issued on Sunday
The Omicron coronavirus variant, reported in more than 60 countries, poses a “very high” global risk, with some evidence that it evades vaccine protection but clinical data on its severity is limited, the World Health Organization says., first detected last month in southern Africa and Hong Kong, whose mutations may lead to higher transmissibility and more cases of COVID-19 disease, the WHO said in a technical brief issued on Sunday.
It is unclear whether Omicron is inherently more contagious than the globally dominant Delta variant, the WHO said. “We don’t know how much neutralizing antibody is enough. We still haven’t really pinned down what is the threshold of protection,” Snape said, adding the best advice for the not-yet-vaccinated is to seek an initial course and for those vaccinated to get booster shots.Their findings were broadly in line with another lab analysis last week on the blood of twice-vaccinated individuals conducted by researchers at the Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria.
Pfizer and BioNTech said last week that two shots of their vaccine may still protect against severe disease, because its mutations were unlikely to evade the T-cells’ response. While early findings suggest that Omicron may be less severe than the Delta variant, more data is needed to determine whether Omicron is inherently less dangerous, it said.
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