Omicron The Most Worrying COVID Variant Yet.

Today I'm gonna talk about new evidence that there's reason to prepare for "COVID-22"

A third year of a pandemic rebooted with a new variant called Omicron which was tracked hitting North America overnight. In canada experts say the strain has been identified in over 15.

It's expected to reach the US. It had been almost a month since the US president gave formal remarks about Covid and the new variant that

"We should not be freaking out not a cause for panic. It's not the time to panic we're going to fight COVID this winter not with shutdowns or lockdowns but with more widespread vaccinations, boosters and testing."

Almost 60 percent of Americans now are vaccinated that's still though a figure that experts say must rise. Safety measures also work but they continue to tax public patients after these two years of sacrifice.

Now at a very high global risk it's been identified in a range of countries including South Africa. The white administration banning incoming travel from eight nations in the region as a  precaution, While other countries are going farther responding with drastic and quite costly measures.

Morocco and Japan doing full bans barring virtually any visitor from abroad as their initial emergency response.

Experts don't know all the details but even if this variant is more serious, scientists think they all also already know enough that they could tweak current effective vaccines to address the new variant if needed. 

Pfizer says it could adjust its existing vaccine within 100 days. They have made multiple times clear that they will be able to have a vaccine in less than 100 days in fact they have already two vaccines built in less than 100 days.

The current vaccine is very effective against Delta and they built one for Beta which also didn't have to use. So, they would build one at risk right now at the four Omicron that will be used only in case if needed.

There's three main concerns with new variant. One is will it become more dangerous more virulent? The second is will it evade immune protection from either vaccination or natural immunity? And the third is whether or not it's more contagious?

It's not just the presence of mutations that is a concern but rather the profile, the amount, the combination and in this instance this variant Omicron does appear to be more significant than its predecessor Delta with about double the number of mutations at that very critical spike protein. Which as we know is the target for the vaccines and also areas of the spike that attach to the human cell. Hence increasing or triggering the concern for increased transmissibility, We don't have any Data yet on virulence. 

It's anecdotally right now out of South Africa that it does not appear to be a more causing more severe disease and  there's no evolutionary advantage to a virus to become more severe because it will die off with the host it infects. 

So, what we are going to hear in a matter of weeks is that it is more contagious and probably evades immune protection from vaccination again, Partially to what degree we don't know.

The way the immune system works is that  there is a blunted antibody response if you've been vaccinated and if you come into contact with this variant you might have a greater chance of becoming infected that could lead to mild or moderate illness. But the other parts of your immune system that are the B cells and those cells are ready and waiting to protect you from severe disease that hasn't changed. 

There's nothing about the variant that is suggesting that your immune system would not behave in a more in a predictable manner in that regard.