Is Omicron our way out of the pandemic?

There’s a lot of information out there about where we’re at with Omicron at the moment, especially around the severity of the infection and whether this variant will see the end of Covid-19. We spoke to an immunologist Prof. Christine Loscher from DCU for clarification of current findings regarding Omicron.

What do we now know about Omicron?

“He’s the new kid on the block, he’s in his seventh week on the radar. We know he’s highly transferred, so it’s very different from what we’ve seen before. He has a significant number of mutations besides the rest of a lot of them have been in the spike protein and this spike protein is what we vaccinate and also make antibodies.

“It changes a lot of things. The antibodies we make with our vaccines are not as good as they would have been against. Alpha and Delta. That’s what we call immune breakout, which means Omicron is good at avoiding previous immunity because it has changed its appearance so much that our antibodies just don’t attach and are not as sticky, if you will.

We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage additional content that may place cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please check their details and accept them to load the content.Manage preferences

From the Brendan O’Connor Show of RTÉ Radio 1, Cork GP and Covid Advisor to College of General Practitioners Dr Mary Favier on where we stand in relation to the Omicron variant

“Having said that, we have boosters. What boosters do is they increase the amount of antibodies you have, so while it’s not as sticky, the fact that you have more actually gives you more protection. This is the value of the booster. “

What about the transmission?

“If you look at the different variations, they have all become much more heritable than the original variant and this has been the most heritable. WHO noted probably half of the European population will benefit from it in the coming weeks. It’s five or six times more transmissible than Delta.

“The lag is that there is a small trade-off when viruses mutate strongly to better cause infection. We believe the trade-off here is that although Omicron is highly transmissible, it changes the way it infects when it is infected. enters your body and presents itself as a slightly different infection.

“It’s not as good for getting deep into your lungs so a lot is left in the upper airways, which is why the symptoms seem to be a runny nose, sore throat, head, type stuff. common cold. We are literally seeing all over the world where Omicron is dominant that people don’t have this deep lung infection, this pneumonia that we would have seen with other variants. “

We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage additional content that may place cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please check their details and accept them to load the content.Manage preferences

From RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland, Professor Christine Loscher on changes to close contact rules

So more people get sick, but the infection is often not that bad?

“Yes, we get infection on a much larger scale than we’ve ever seen before, but translating into serious illness isn’t the way we’ve seen it before. In fact, it presents as a much milder infection in most people. There will obviously always be people in the population who are more vulnerable people, who will do just as well. Our vaccination schedule and our booster schedule have given us a level of protection which also adds to the reason why infections are milder.

“I think the combination of vaccines and boosters and the fact that it’s a different type of infection means hospitalizations and intensive care admissions are not what we would have seen with previous variants. . And that’s a very positive thing to be able to say. “

On the other hand, what do we not yet know about Omicron?

“What we don’t know is if it’s going to give us different results in terms of recovery, especially in terms of long Covid. One of the things we’ve seen with all the other variants is that some people even with mild infections have had persistent symptoms such as fatigue, muscle pain, trouble sleeping, that kind of brain fog. These symptoms can linger for weeks or months. We know from data from The Kingdom -Neither that the percentage of people of different age groups actually vary considerably, ranging from 2% to 10%.

We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage additional content that may place cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please check their details and accept them to load the content.Manage preferences

From RTÉ Radio 1’s Today with Claire Byrne, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove from the World Health Organization on the Omicron wave

“We don’t know yet if Omicron is going to give us a different outcome profile. We think a lot of Long Covid relates to this underlying chronic inflammation that persists after infection. The fact that Omicron does not infect deep into the lungs may lead you to believe that it does not cause as much chronic inflammation. If this is true, then you may be in a situation where the long Covid is not as much of an Omicron factor as it was with the previous variants. “

“The other thing we don’t know is how long will you get some immunity against Omicron if you’ve had an infection with Omicron? Does the immunity last or are you open to re-infection? in a very short period of time? This is going to be a really key decision maker as to whether or not we go into this surge and come out of it and then go back into another surge. The immunity of the population is very high and the virus does not has nowhere to go, so the question of reinfection is going to be really key in determining where Omicron leaves us. “

Are there any positive elements that we can take from the current situation?

“If we try to look at the positives here, a side effect of Omicon is that it contributes to the wall of immunity that we are building across the population. Our wall of immunity is being built because of our vaccination program, our program booster and the fact that we are starting to vaccinate other age groups. We are now starting to vaccinate 5-11 year olds and our uptake among 12-15 year olds and even 16-18 year olds has increased over the years. last months .

We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage additional content that may place cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please check their details and accept them to load the content.Manage preferences

From RTÉ Radio 1’s Drivetime, Why Greek Is Used To Name Variants

“If we see Omicron as the key variant in the world over the next six months, then the immunity wall we are building with the infection is very specific to Omicron and that could give us a huge level of immunity from the infection. population, which means when the virus has nowhere to go. We could be in a situation in a few months where we will have very few cases, a very high level of immunity from the population and a real opportunity to return to a huge normalcy in everyday life.

“It depends on the reinfection. It depends on whether or not we get over this increase in the time span before a reinfection occurs. It also depends on everything outside of Ireland – what will be the immunity of the population vaccinated throughout the world?

“We need to be clear that we are not using infection to generate immunity in the population under any circumstances. This is not a goal, it is not what we should be doing, it is not at all a good public health strategy or public health action. But this infection strengthens our immunity and it is a fact. It potentially leaves us in a very good position. I would have always predicted that we would have potentially some normality in this pandemic by March and I think we could really be on the right track for that if we have built our immunity to a sufficient level.

“The curve is what happens if another variant comes along, and where does that leave us? One of the things we do know is that we now have three advantages that we didn’t have before. We know that pharmaceutical companies can modify vaccines to specific variants very quickly. Our T cell immunity that we have built through vaccination and infection will protect us from serious disease in terms of another variant. Finally, we have a new tool in our kit for 2022, and that is the antivirals. All of these things put us in a very good position for this year. “

The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ