COVID-19: Omicron multiplies 70 times faster than Delta variant

A study led by researchers at the LKS School of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong has provided the first insight into how the worrying new variant of the SARS-CoV-2, known as Omicron, infects the human respiratory tract.

These researchers have discovered that omicron infects the original SARS-CoV-2 in human bronchi, which may explain why omicron can be transmitted faster between humans than previous variants.

However, their study has also shown that, which can be an indicator of a lower severity of the disease. This research is currently in the peer review phase for publication.

The scientists responsible for this study, Michael Chan Chi-wai and John Nicholls, are pioneers in investigating many emerging viral infections since 2007, such as bird flu and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS).

Now this technique has been applied to understand why the omicron variant may differ in transmission and disease severity from other SARS-CoV-2 variants. This method, which is normally discarded, to investigate viral diseases of the respiratory tract.

Chan and his team successfully isolated the Omicron variant and used this experimental model to compare the infection with the original 2020 SARS-CoV-2, the Delta variant, and the new variant. They found that Ómicron replicates faster than the original SARS-CoV-2 virus and the Delta variant in the human bronchus.

At 24 hours after infection, the Omicron variant replicated about 70 times more than the Delta variant and the parent SARS-CoV-2 virus. Instead, than the original virus, which may suggest a lower severity of the disease.

Chan points out that the severity of the disease in humans is not determined solely by virus replication, but also by the host’s immune response to infection, which can lead to a, that is, a ‘cytokine storm’ .

“It has also been observed that by infecting many more people, a highly infectious virus can cause more serious illness and death even though the virus itself is less pathogenic. Therefore, along with our recent studies showing that the Omicron variant may partially escape the immunity of vaccines and previous infection, the global threat of the variant is likely to be very significant. “, the scientist has warned.

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