The Emergence of Omicron: Challenging Times Are Here Again!

Abstract

COVID-19 has been reported to have caused more than 286 million cases and 5.4 million deaths till date. COVID variants have appeared at regular intervals—alpha, beta, gamma, delta and now omicron. ‘Omicron’ is driving the current surge of cases in most countries including India and is poised to replace ‘delta’ the world over. This variant with more than 50 mutations is phylogenetically very different from other variants. The omicron variant spreads rapidly with an average doubling time of two days. The disease so far has been mild as compared with delta. Though previous infection and vaccination offer little or no protection against infection with omicron, they do seem to partially protect against hospitalization and severe disease. Booster vaccinations have not made any notable impact on the spread of omicron and have further worsened global vaccine equity. The indirect consequences of omicron from lockdowns, restrictions, travel bans, economic losses, health care worker infections and overwhelming of health care facilities are likely to be enormous. The direct effects of omicron on children are expected to be mild like with the previous variants. However, the indirect effects on child mental, physical, and social health may be considerable owing to school closures, missed vaccinations, neglect of other diseases, etc. It is, therefore, imperative that governments take rational decisions to navigate the world through this latest crisis.

SARS-CoV-2 and Coronavirus Disease Mitigation: Treatment Options, Vaccinations and Variants

“…The infection with the Omicron variant can boost and enhance more immune responses than other variants [254]. This means that having a previous natural infection or having the booster dose of vaccines was associated with partial protection against severe Omicron variant symptoms and hospital admissions [257,[259][260][261]. A previous COVID-19 infection and having two doses of vaccines can decrease the risk of hospital admission by 50% and 41%, respectively [261].…”

“…On the other hand, Singhal T stated that giving booster doses of vaccines can disrupt the global equity in vaccines distributions among the countries with no marked impact on controlling the rapid spread of the Omicron variant [260].…”

Validation of the RT-LAMP assay in a large cohort of nasopharyngeal swab samples shows that it is a useful screening method for detecting SARS-CoV-2 and its VOC variants

“…Although prior infection and immunization offer little or no protection against infection with omicron, they do appear to protect against hospitalization and severe disease, in a similar fashion to the delta variant. Booster vaccines have had no discernible impact on omicron’s spread (11, 12). For a variety of reasons, the total risk associated with Omicron remains remarkably high.…”

Variante ómicron de SARS-CoV-2. ¿El fin de la pandemia?

“…La enfermedad por coronavirus 2019 (covid-19), causada por el SARS-CoV-2 (coronavirus 2 del síndrome respiratorio agudo severo), ha tenido un efecto devastador en la población mundial, ha provocado más de 5,4 millones de muertes en todo el mundo y se ha convertido en la crisis de salud mundial más importante desde la pandemia de gripe de 1918. A partir del 11 de marzo, cuando la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) la declaró pandemia mundial, el virus continúa causando devastación y muchos países continúan soportando múltiples olas de brotes de esta enfermedad viral (1,2).…”

“…Esta variante fue rápidamente reconocida como una variante preocupante debido al fuerte aumento en el número de casos observados en Sudáfrica. La variante ómicron posee más de 50 mutaciones en su genoma, de las cuales, 32 son cambios en la proteína espiga del virus (2). Investigaciones sobre ómicron sugieren que muestra un aumento de 13 veces en la infectividad viral, y es 2,8 veces más infeccioso que la variante delta.…”