Dissecting the latest coronavirus variant threat — Omicron

• The latest coronavirus variant to threaten the global society and economy is the B.1.1.529 variant

• It is also known as the Omicron variant, after the fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet.

The SARS-Cov2 virus continues to expand its reach into the Greek alphabet with its never-ending list of variants, the latest one being ‘Omicron’. The new B.1.1.529 variant, named Omicron by the World Health Organization (WHO), was first identified in South Africa and is rapidly spreading in Gauteng province which includes the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria.

As of late morning on Monday, the U.K. has identified nine cases caused due to the Omicron coronavirus variant, six of which are in Scotland, while the Netherlands and Portugal have each discovered 13 cases.

Elsewhere in Europe, small numbers of cases have been identified in Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and Austria.

Multiple mutations

The new variant comes with more than 50 mutations, of which 30 are on the spike protein. The spike protein is the exposed part of the virus that binds with human cells. The changes in the spike protein could make it more transmissible than the dominant Delta variant and more likely to evade the immune protection conferred by vaccines or prior infection.

The Financial Times broke down the cause for so many mutations. Errors in the copying process, as Sars-Cov-2 replicates, occasionally change some of the 30,000 biochemical letters in its genetic code — typically at a rate of two mutations per month.

Level of transmissibility

The rate at which the COVID-19 disease has spread in various regions has constantly been measured through the R number. 

The R number is the number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to, on average. If the R-value is higher than one, then the number of cases keeps increasing. But if the R number is lower the disease will eventually stop spreading, because not enough new people are being infected to sustain the outbreak.

The Financial Times reported that the epidemic’s growth rate was estimated at 1.93 for Gauteng, where Omicron is concentrated. The R-value for South Africa as a whole is 1.47.

However, the Co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, Dr. Peter Hotez told CNN that it was difficult to determine whether the omicron variant would be a deadlier variant than the other predominant coronavirus variants. 

"Before we press the panic button I think there are a few things to consider. Yes, it does have some immune escape properties, or at least it looks like it might, but that's not what's associated with high transmissibility. We've had other immune-escape variants before that have not taken off... That's what I'm looking out for, the level of transmissibility," he said, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Some mutations in the SARS-Cov2 indicate increased transmissibility, while changes in the genetic code make it harder for the immune system, trained by existing vaccinations or prior infection with another variant, to tackle a new strain. It will take researchers several weeks or months to work out the interactions between them and their cumulative impact, reported FT.

Travel bans

Meanwhile, the U.K. implemented a temporary travel ban on six southern African countries on Friday. The U.S. has now restricted travel from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, and Malawi. Japan will on Tuesday become the second country after Israel to close its borders to all foreigners.

“The objective of the border closures and travel restrictions that have been announced is to limit the global spread of the variant,” said Francois Balloux, director of the UCL Genetics Institute in London, told FT.

“If B.1.1.529 were more transmissible than Delta, this strategy is most unlikely to succeed in the long term but might allow gaining some time to further increase vaccination rates, including third doses, and deploy promising drugs currently in the pipeline,” he added, reported FT.

Vaccinate to eradicate

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus highlighted that more than 80% of the world’s vaccines had gone to the G-20 advanced economies, while low-income countries, many of them in Africa, had received just 0.6% of all vaccines.

The WHO urged wealthy nations to share vaccine supply and said vaccine inequity will enable the virus to “spread and evolve in ways we cannot predict or prevent.”

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(With inputs from CNBC and Financial Times)

Picture Credits: The Guardian