Covid Omicron Variant
Covid-19 is back with another variant known as ‘omicron’. Omicron is South Africa based variant which has put the world again at alert. The new variant has transmitted to other countries as well in Australia, Germany, UK, Italy, Czech Republic, Israel, and Hong Kong. Now people all over the world need to be ‘more negative’ and strictly follow the SOPs as the variant is suspected to be more dangerous and deadly.
The first case was detected on 9 th November and mutations were detected on 24 th November as declared by WHO. The variant is referred as B.1.1.529 and is called variant of concern (VOC).
Omicron variant mutations:
There are more than 30 mutations in this new variant with 35 spike mutations and 10 receptor domain mutations. These mutations have led this deadly virus to evade and spread more rapidly. This deadly variant is also very smart than others as it has discovered new mechanisms to evade the immunity. The labs have detected that one of the gene which was used for detection called S gene is missing in this variant referred as S gene drop out. S gene drop out has provided the variant advantage of growth.
The symptoms observed in patients affected by omicron variant are extreme tiredness and fatigue, fever, sore muscles. None of the patients are reported who lost their sensation of smell and taste. The South African doctor has reported that the symptoms are mild unusually.
Vaccination:
The vaccine effectiveness can not be determined at this level but countries are asked to administer booster Pfizer dose to everyone. Everyone get their booster dose done and stay covid negative. Some people who are diagnosed with omicron variant had received Pfizer, AstraZeneca, or Johnson & Johnson. Hence nothing can be said about the efficacy of vaccines yet.
