Keep doing what you’re doing! I know the news of Omicron has people worried. I debated putting this up but the news is out and I don’t think it helps anyone to have useful resources wait to come out until later. But let me reiterate – keep doing what you’re doing! Prioritize vaccination and take important social precautions (masking, testing, minimizing group sizes, moving things outdoors, etc.). Even if Omicron becomes the next Delta, we are safeguarded by all the things we’ve been doing already.
So what do we know?
– It was discovered in Botswana on November 11. It has since been Identified in South Africa, Hong Kong, Israel, and Belgium. There are currently no identified cases in the United States.
– We have only about 100 identified cases so speculation is very premature! It is a variant to keep on your radar but recognize that we don’t have enough data to know the R0 value (transmission).
– It’s ability to escape immunity is totally unclear. It is speculation based on some of the mutations that it contains but much more real-world data is needed on this. Potentially of importance is that Botswana is only ~30% vaccinated. The South African Health Minister also announced that the “majority of hospitalized cases are unvaccinated”.
– There is not enough information to determine if severity of disease will be higher.
– The spike protein has over 30 mutations which is more than with Delta and each one has the potential to change how we react to it.
– Some great news: it can be picked up with a standard pcr test (as opposed to full genome sequencing), we have caught this variant very early thanks to the vigilance of South African and Botswanan researches, mRNA vaccines have the ability to be adapted quickly, and antiviral drugs should not have reduced effectiveness!
Keep doing what you’re doing!
Sources:
Jeffrey Barrett Twitter thread going over 32 mutations.
New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529. Your Local Epidemiologist.
WHO Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern.
Hong Kong report of 2 individual cases and their potential transmission.
Tweet from South African Health Ministry about most cases unvaccinated.