Omicron variant infections "are milder, which is why it is said that the virus is 'cooling down', is starting to adapt to humans and therefore is becoming a normal coronavirus. It could take a long time or maybe this year for to complete the adaptation, it will depend a lot on the pressure that we will apply, between the masks and the vaccine ".
Thus Massimo Ciccozzi, director of the epidemiological unit at the Campus Biomedico University of Rome, spoke at Cusano Italia TV.
These two pressures, he explained, "will do more and more so that the virus goes on endemic and becomes more and more our normal travel companion, a normal coronavirus that will give us a little cold, a little headache. of throat, a low-grade fever. We will not be able to eradicate it like Sars, which made another spillover and disappeared ".
The Omicron variant, he stressed, "is extremely contagious, has a contagiousness very close to that of measles. We have very high prevalence rates from Omicron, even though Delta is still there and some infections are still related to the old variant" .
Omicron, the expert then specified, "attacks the throat more than the lungs. This is excellent news. There is a recent study, done on cells and therefore valid, which highlights how the growth of cells in the upper respiratory tract is very impressive, contrary to what happens instead in the lungs. So it stops in the first respiratory tract, that's why one of the symptoms is a sore throat ".