What do we know about the new omicron and is there anything to fear?

This morning, the director general of the Ministry of Health said that Israel is at the beginning of a sixth wave due to the spread of the BA.5 variation of the Omicron. What do we know about the new variant and what can we expect?

Walla!

health

19/06/2022

Sunday, 19 June 2022, 11:32 Updated: 12:12

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The director general of the Ministry of Health, Prof. Nachman Ash, agreed this morning (Sunday) that Israel is at the beginning of "Gal Hadash" and told 103FM that "we are careful with terminology, because we had such a thing about a month or so ago - there was an increase and very fast It went down. "

And yet he admits that" this time it's really different, and there's a new variant, the BA-5 which is more contagious, and now you can start calling it by its name, I think you can start calling it a new wave. "He confirmed that in the Ministry of Health Recognize an increase in verified data in Corona as well as in morbidity and hospitalization, but not in mortality, and said that prior to the current data, it is "more or less" as dangerous as the Omicron strain.

More on Walla!

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To the full article

47,301 people are currently defined as verified blues in Corona in Israel, 147 of them in critical condition.

Eight people infected with corona have died in the past week, and the total death toll since the onset of the plague stands at 10,896.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US, BA.4 now accounts for about 8% of cases in the country, and BA.5 accounts for about 13%. In other countries like Portugal BA.5 already accounts for over 90 percent of infections.

However, because the method of testing for the virus is not uniform, there are fears around the world of "latent morbidity", which could accelerate the spread of the virus. The Pfizer and Madorna vaccine will be given starting next week in the United States.

"Challenges the protection of the vaccinated."

Corona Vaccine (Photo: GettyImages, Joe Raedle)

Ash admitted that the new variant challenges the protection of the vaccinated and recovering from corona.

"There are quite a few vaccinated vaccines and we have no proof that another vaccine will really protect, certainly not from infections and it is not clear to us whether from the serious illness. It's a different story for a fifth vaccine. "

"Replicates faster and causes lung tissue infection"

BA.4 and BA.5 were first identified in South Africa in January and February 2022, respectively, and have since become the dominant versions in different parts of the world.

Both variations contain the amino acid substitutes L452R, F486V and R493Q in the binding domain to the spike receptor compared to BA.2 which spread a few months ago around the world and in Israel.

Preliminary studies indicate a significant change in the antigenic properties of BA.4 and BA.5 compared to BA.1 and BA.2, especially compared to BA.1.

BA.4 and BA.5 share many of the same mutations as the original Omicron variation, but have more in common with variant BA.2.

They also have a number of additional mutations, some of which may change their characteristics.

The two new variations carry a relatively common mutation of L452R, which was also previously identified in the Delta variation, and is thought to make the virus more contagious by improving the virus' ability to bind to human cells, it may also help it partially evade destruction by immune cells.

Only a handful of scientific studies have been published on BA.4 and BA.5 so far, none of which have been peer-reviewed, meaning knowledge about them remains limited.

Researchers in Tokyo have said that the newer versions of Omicron may cause more disease than the previous one, according to a preliminary study published so far only on preliminary platforms (and has not yet been peer-reviewed).

They found that in laboratory tests, when unvaccinated people recovered from BA.1 or BA.2 infections, they did not have enough antibodies to protect against BA.4 and BA.5.

The research team also found that BA.4 and BA.5 replicated more easily in human lung cells, rather than upper respiratory tract tissue - making them more similar to previous versions, such as alpha or delta, and therefore causing more severe disease than BA.2 .

These preliminary findings suggest that BA.4 and BA.5 carry a greater potential for global health risk: "more than that of the original BA.2," the authors wrote.

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