NOVOSIBIRSK, December 1. /TASS/. The resistance of the new Omicron coronavirus strain to the immune response elicited by vaccines will become clear in at least two weeks when it will be possible to determine how many vaccinated and unvaccinated people contracted it, Head of the Novosibirsk State University’s Laboratory of Bionanotechnology, Microbiology and Virology Sergey Netesov told TASS.
"The WHO received the report on November 24, so far there is no information about how resistant the variant is to the immune response. In order to determine this, it is necessary to understand how many vaccinated and unvaccinated people will contract it as well as when they were inoculated and with which vaccine. Currently, everybody is observing this with great attention and then in a couple of weeks it will clear up - at least in two weeks. At present, there is only data on the aspects of the disease on 20 patients that South African doctor Angelique Coetzee (Chair of the South African Medical Association - TASS) had, but she had healthy young people, it is difficult to draw conclusions from their example," the virologist said.
He added that the Omicron variant causes concern but its real danger has not yet been evaluated because the number of identified patients has not surpassed one hundred. According to him, initially the Delta variant was underestimated which led to up to 1,000 people dying daily in Russia of the coronavirus infection.
On Friday, a new variant of the coronavirus was identified in South Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO) designated the B.1.1.529 variant as a "Variant of Concern" and assigned it the Greek letter Omicron. In its statement, the WHO noted that "this variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning." Moreover, according to preliminary data, the risk of contracting this variant is substantially higher than with the Delta variant.
The southern part of the African continent is where the emergence and the initial spread of the Omicron variant began. The highest number of those infected with it has been detected to date in South Africa. As South African President Cyril Ramaphosa stated earlier, the majority of new COVID-19 infections in the most densely populated Gauteng Province have the Omicron variant. Over the past three days, coronavirus was detected in more than 3,000 people in Gauteng.
According to the latest global statistics, over 261.2 mln people have been infected worldwide and more than 5.2 mln deaths have been reported. To date, 9,636,881 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 8,329,253 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 275,193 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.