Scientists say the real threat posed by Omicron is “unlikely” to be known until the new year

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The government’s scientific advisors have warned that the real threat posed by the coronavirus variant is unlikely to be determined until the turn of the new year.

Experts from the Scientific Group on Pandemic Influenza on Modeling (SPI-M) believe that “the worse the problem, the sooner we will know” – but it is expected that it will be a month before data indicate whether omicron will lead to an increase in hospitalizations among pollinators.

More than 40 cases have now been detected in the UK, but analysis suggests the true number may be much higher, amid fears that loopholes in the country’s Covid testing network could lead to underreporting of omicron infections.

The WHO said laboratory-based information about the transmissibility of the variant would be available “within days”, but that this would not provide a complete picture of how acquired or natural immunity is diminished by omicron, or to what extent.

Members of SPI-M, a subcommittee of Sage, said that officials in the UK and abroad will likely know within at least four weeks whether the omicron, which has acquired a large number of worrying mutations, bypasses pre-existing immunity in people and forces them to be hospitalized. .

“If we don’t see a sharp rise in [omicron-positive] “Cases or hospitalizations in the next four to six weeks, then we can start to relax,” said Matt Keeling, a professor of mathematics and life sciences at the University of Warwick and an expert for SPI-M.

“However, we may realize that there are problems much sooner. We can start to see dramatic spikes in the [omicron] cases within a week or two, although the indirect effects on hospitalization will take longer.”

South African officials have warned that the alternative is already growing at an exponential rate in the country. It appears to be responsible for cases rising more steeply and faster than previously reported increases, although hospital admissions appear to follow earlier spikes.

COVID-19 cases in South Africa doubled between Tuesday and Wednesday this week, rising from 4,373 to 8,561. However, it remains unclear how many of these new infections were caused by Omicron.

Hospitalizations also recently jumped in Gauteng province, the epicenter of an Omicron outbreak in South Africa, but more data is needed to determine the age and vaccination status of those admitted.

Professor Adrian Hill, one of the scientists behind the Oxford vaccine, said it would be “disturbing” if there were “a lot of severe cases and hospitalizations among the elderly in South Africa”. “It hasn’t happened yet, but it hasn’t happened for long,” he added.

The World Health Organization said it had received reports of a range of cases “going from mild to severe illness”, while scientists from South Africa’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NICD) said they believed infection from omicrons “would be less severe”.

“This is what we are trying to prove and monitor very carefully in South Africa. This is what we are trying to demonstrate and monitor very carefully in South Africa. Microbiologist Anne von Guttberg at the National Institute of Diabetes and Obesity (NICD) said:

Professor Hill said nervous scientific onlookers were not yet in a position to draw firm conclusions from South African epidemiology. “But if there is not a lot of severe outbreaks within a month [driven by omicron]”I think we’ll be more relaxed,” he added.

“To discover the effect of oomicron on hospitalization, we would need several thousand infections, and hopefully it will be several weeks before we have it,” said Graham Medley, Head of SPI-M, Professor of Infectious Disease Modeling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

“The worse the problem is, the sooner we will know,” he added.

In England, there were an estimated 60 cases of omicron by November 28, according to analysis by Dr Nick Davies, an evolutionary biologist and epidemiologist at LSHTM. At the time, only a few people were confirmed to have the variant.

Dr Davis’ analysis also indicates that the number of Covid samples likely to be Omicron has risen from about 0.1 to 0.3 percent in recent days.

His findings come amid concerns that only between a third and half of laboratories in the UK have the technology required to detect suspected Omicron cases, meaning some infections may fly under the radar.

Dr Jenny Harris, chief executive of the UK’s Health Security Agency, said on Thursday that officials expect “to find more cases over the coming days as we see in other countries globally, and as case detection increases through focused contact tracing”.

Meanwhile, the European Union’s public health agency said Omicron could be responsible for more than half of all Covid-19 cases across the continent within months. She added that no case of serious disease has been identified in the region.

Europe has so far recorded 79 cases of the omicron variant that was first detected in South Africa last month, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

The ECDC prediction is based on mathematical modeling that can lend weight to early estimates about the high transmissibility of the omicron, indicating that it will continue to outperform the globally dominant delta variant.

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