Omicron variant spreads globally
The Covid variant has now reached at least 10 US states, study says it may have picked up a piece of common-cold virus
WASHINGTON/ LONDON: The Omicron variant has now reached at least 10 US states, and White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said there is “absolutely” community spread.
The states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Maryland and Nebraska reported Omicron infections on Friday, and cases are guaranteed to keep on increasing in the coming days, according to Fauci.
Covid-19 infections in the US are at the highest level in two months. Infections had been rising even before the discovery and arrival of the Omicron strain.
The seven-day average of cases in the US was 100,835 as of Thursday, the most since October 6, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg.
England has identified 75 more infections caused by the omicron variant, tripling the total caseload to 104, the UK health security agency reported.
Cases have been reported across the country.
Separately, China reported 75 new infections of Covid-19, as an outbreak in a border town expanded. Inner Mongolia, where the flare-up is concentrated, added 61 cases, and a further three people without symptoms also tested positive, the National Health Commission said, without specifying if any infections were due to omicron. Singapore said vaccinated travellers have to test daily for a week.
Snippet of Common cold The Omicron variant likely acquired at least one of its mutations by picking up a snippet of genetic material from another virus - possibly one that causes the common cold - present in the same infected cells, according to researchers.
This genetic sequence does not appear in any earlier versions of the coronavirus, called Sars-CoV-2, but is ubiquitous in many other viruses including those that cause the common cold, and also in the human genome, researchers said.
By inserting this particular snippet into itself, Omicron might be making itself look “more human”, which would help it evade attack by the human immune system, said Venky Soundararajan of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based data analytics firm nference, who led the study posted on Thursday on the website OSF Preprints.