70 times faster: Omicron spreads in the body much faster than the delta strain

Researchers conducted a type of cell-adhesion race between the original Corona strain, the Delta strain and the new variant, and found that Omicron reached the finish line much faster than its predecessors, not to mention left them with dust.

What it means?

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health

20/12/2021

Monday, 20 December 2021, 00:10

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In the video: A press conference by the heads of the Ministry of Health about the Omicron strain (Photo: GPO, Editing: Aviad Ballali)

The whole world is adapting to the realization that the attempt to gain control and perhaps even defeat the corona virus has failed again - thanks to the new variant Omicron which is spreading around the world faster than all its predecessors. The presence of variant Omicron has already been confirmed in 77 countries, although it is likely that the real number is higher and it is already present in other countries that have not yet confirmed this definitively. Many European countries are once again returning to closures and restrictions, while evidence is accumulating to indicate that Omicron is much more contagious than all its predecessors, including the Delta variant and the original strain of the corona virus.

Preliminary findings of a new study, which is currently being peer-reviewed, are beginning to shed light on how much more omicron is contagious, and discover the mechanisms that allow it to overcome the most common strain to date - Delta - and leave it dusty.

The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Hong Kong School of Medicine, and they found that the omicron strain replicates and multiplies in the airways of people it infects at 70 times the rate of the Delta strain.

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More contagious than all its predecessors.

Imaging of the Omicron strain (Photo: Reuters)

To try to figure out what makes omicron such a successful strain in infection, the researchers took samples of lung tissue and airway tissue, and infected them in the lab with viruses isolated from the omicron strain to form cultures. They looked at samples and cultures to learn how the omicron infects the cells and how quickly it replicates copies of itself within them after infection. Their findings regarding the omicron strain were compared by researchers to samples of the Delta strain and the original corona strain that started the global epidemic outbreak.

Their findings elicited a very rapid rate of replication of the omicron strain in the tissues of the airways - its rate of doubling in cells was about 70 times faster than the rate of doubling of the delta strain in the same type of tissue. Whereas in the lung tissue the omicron strain was found to replicate 10 times more slowly compared to the original corona strain.

What was interesting was that the researchers saw that despite the amazing growth rate of the omicron strain in the cells in a short time, it did not cause a more serious disease and their initial findings actually indicate that the new variant probably causes less severe disease than its predecessors.

According to them, this is because the severity of the disease is affected by a number of combined factors, and not just the rate of multiplication of the virus.

In large numbers the variant has the potential to cause more severe cases and even mortality.

Genetic flooring of the Omicron strain in the laboratories of Assaf Harofeh Hospital (Photo: Yotam Ronen)

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"The severity of the disease is also determined by each person's immune response, which can lead to an unbalanced physical response (meaning 'cytokine storm'). But it is also important to consider that a virus with a particularly high infectivity can cause more serious consequences because it infects more people. The variant has the potential to cause more severe cases and even mortality, although it is considered a less pathogenic virus than previous strains, "explained Dr. Michael Chan Chi-wai, who led this study. "Providing less protection against the Omicron strain, we understand that the potential risk from this variant is very significant," he added.

Since this study has not yet completed the peer review process, its findings are considered only preliminary.

However, if we add his conclusions to those from another study published last week and found that Omicron manages to produce infection even with a lower viral load than was required in previous strains, it seems that the mutations this variant carries on its spike protein make it more contagious and more widespread than previous covid-19 strains to him.

Despite this, the researchers estimated that the chances of simultaneously infecting both strains - Omicron and Delta - that would lead to the formation of a super-mutation, were very low.

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• covid-19

• Corona virus

• Omicron variant