What we know about Omicron variant so far
The big questions -whether the newest variant of concern (VOC) is more transmissible, more resistant to vaccine or past infection immunity, or more virulent – are likely to take some time to be answered. To determine these, experts will need to wait for adequate epidemiological and clinical data. At the least, cases need to be watched for three weeks, the time by when infections usually completely resolve or take a turn for the worse.
For now, there are only two approximate knowns with the Omicron variant: first, it is almost certainly out-competing the Delta variant; and second, evolutionarily, it has taken a much farther leap than variants typically have.
Late on Wednesday, the Network for Genomic Surveillance in
South Africa (NGS-SA) released new details about their surveillance of Sars-Cov-2 variants, including findings specific to Omicron that they first sequenced in a sample collected on November 8.
Much still remains unknown about the variant of concern ( VOC), but the new report strengthens one of the earliest assumptions: Omicron is likely displacing Delta, the VOC that led to India’s devastating summer surge and is at present triggering hot spots of outbreak in much of Europe.
From no sequences in October, Omicron accounted for 74% of the 249 genotyped samples by NGS-SA. In the same period, Delta prevalence plummeted from 83% to 22% of the samples.
The switch is almost identical to what happened in May and June, when the then prevalent variant, Beta, dropped from being found in 65% of the samples to 18% in a span of 30 days, while Delta accounted for 66%, after being found in 16% of samples in the month before.
Delta went on to displace Beta and trigger a new wave in South Africa, and it appears Omicron is on a similar course. Overall, South Africa’s case numbers doubled daily for last two days.