Variant B.1.1.529 or Omicron is said to be 500% faster in transmission than the original variant of the SARS-CoV-2 Corona virus which was first discovered in Wuhan, China in December 2019.
That means, the Omicron variant transmits five times faster than the original variant. Quoted from The Guardian, Monday (11/29/2021) this faster transmission is thought to be due to indications of the Omicron variant that can fight or avoid the body's immunity.
The World Health Organization WHO, in its official statement said that the cause of the Omicron variant being more rapidly transmitted was because it had more mutations and some of them were very worrying.
To note, Omicron was first discovered in South Africa and has since been detected in England, Scotland, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Botswana, Israel and Hong Kong.
Chief Medical Adviser UK Health and Security Agency Susan Hopkins warned, this new variant is the most worrying variant.
"The R value or the effective reproduction number of variant B.1.1.529 is now 2 in Gauteng, South Africa," he said as quoted by The Guardian.
He explained, an R value above 1 means this variant has a high risk, resulting in a spike in cases. There are less than 100 whole genome sequences available. However, WHO admits it doesn't know much about this new variant.
"What we do know is that this variant has a large number of mutations. And the concern is that we have so many mutations, and that could have an impact on how the virus behaves," said Maria van Kerkhove, WHO chief executive officer for COVID-19 technical affairs.
Thus, even though there are only a few cases, these new variants are causing concern among researchers because to the extent that they mutate, they can help the virus evade immunity.
In addition, preliminary data also show an increased risk of reinfection with this variant, compared to other Variants of Concern (VoC) such as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta.
The experts who carried out research on this new variant were part of an independent expert group called the Technical Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 Virus Evolution (TAG VE).
"There is a lot of work in progress. TAG VE will discuss whether the Omicron variant will be VoI (Variant of Interest) or VoC. And if that is the case, then we will give it a Greek name. But this is being monitored," said Maria.
