Europe in the throes of the fourth wave of Covid is finding itself increasingly fragile. The vaccination campaign continues at full speed, the only weapon to date essential to stop the virus race, but now the Old Continent has to deal with the new South African variant, renamed Omicron (WHO explained why it skipped the Nu and Xi names which would have arrived before Omicron according to the Greek alphabet adopted to define the Covid variants).
Great Britain, which currently holds the presidency of the G7, has called an emergency meeting of health ministers to take stock of the situation. The G7, which is made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, will have to take a stand on handling this new chapter of the pandemic.
While many countries around the world have cut off air links from South Africa, where this new mutation was first isolated, the Omicron has already been detected in several countries, including Italy, United Kingdom, USA, Canada, Australia, Israel and Hong Kong. It New York state has declared a state of emergency as an exceptional measure to deal with it.
Most contagious and most dangerous Omicron variant?
Omicron accounts for most of the 2,300 new cases per day in Gauteng Province, South Africa, and nationally new infections have more than tripled in the past week, so much so that swab positivity has increased from 2% to 9%.
Meanwhile, scientists are collecting all possible data on the new variant, on its contagiousness, on the danger, on the symptoms and above all on the effectiveness of the current approved vaccines. The first results currently photograph a virus with different shades.
The Omicron variant may be more transmissible and more capable of evading immune responses, both vaccination and natural infection, compared to previous versions of the virus. But this was somehow expected, because the virus changes precisely to try to “avoid” the shield effect of vaccines and become increasingly “smart”.
As far as is known now, vaccines should continue to ward off severe Covid or even worse death, though additional booster doses may be needed to protect most people from infection and keep the shield effect produced by immunizations high. Pfizer and Moderna have already announced that they are working to reformulate their preparations against Covid, Comirnaty and Spikevax.
Omicron variant, here are the symptoms
But what are the symptoms of the Omicron variant? As we now know, the list of known symptoms of Coronavirus are many and include fever or chills, cough, sore throat, muscle aches, headache, loss of taste and / or smell, congestion or runny nose, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea. Shortness of breath, difficulty in breathing, fatigue, confusion, abdominal pain are the hallmarks of the most severe forms of the disease.
The new Covid Omicron mutation, South African researchers said, can cause symptoms that are different from previous variants. Angelique Coetzee, president of the South African Medical Association (SAMA), said symptoms in omicron patients were “unusual but mild” in healthy people.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Dr. Coetzee commented that in Omicron patients “their symptoms were so different and so mild from those I had treated before: Omicron has mild illness with symptoms such as muscle aches and fatigue for one day. or two “. The symptoms, explains Coetzee, are indeed tiredness, headache, itchy throat, mild cold or mild cough.
“The symptoms do not coincide with those of the Delta that we saw up to ten weeks ago. We decided to test them because they were similar to those of a viral infection. Infected people they do not suffer the loss of taste or smell. And so far no Omicron patients were hospitalized. We have never seen any serious effects. The interesting thing is that the patients with severe pain in the throat were all negative ”.
WHO speculates “possible serious consequences”
For its part, the WHO stated that “it is not yet clear whether Omicron is more contagious than other variants, including the Delta variant. The number of people tested positive has increased in areas of South Africa affected by this variant, but epidemiological studies are underway to understand if it is due to Omicron or other factors ”. It is also unclear whether Omicron infection causes more serious disease than infections with other variants, including Delta.
Preliminary data suggests that there are increasing hospitalization rates in South Africa, but this could be due to the increase in the overall number of people infected, rather than a specific infection with Omicron. .
“There is currently no information to suggest that the symptoms associated with Omicron are different from those of other variants.” However, Omicron could have “serious consequences”, He says. “The likelihood of a potential further roll-out of Omicron globally is high,” WHO says in a technical paper on the new variant.
Meanwhile, after theappeal by the president of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa, also the WHO asks to keep open the borders with South Africa and other southern African countries. “As countries impose flight bans on southern African nations due to concerns about the new variant of Covid Omicron, WHO urges countries to follow scientific and health regulations,” he stresses.
The first case of Omicron in Italy
In Italy, meanwhile, the first case of Omicron was detected in a 55-year-old from Caserta from South Africa: “patient zero” in Italy said the symptoms were mild. The speech also applies to the family, which includes people between 8 and 81 years of age: the infection, he says, manifested itself in a mild way.
In Europe, the contagion map currently sees some confirmed cases of new variant in Netherlands, in a group of people from South Africa. In France there are some possible suspected cases of infected with the Omicron variant of Covid. Same speech in Germany, Denmark, Austria and the United Kingdom.
Also Walter Ricciardi, advisor to the Minister of Health Roberto Speranza, who spoke at Che Tempo Che Fa, wanted to curb the media terrorism born around the new variant.
“The Omicron variant is called a concern variant, there are elements we need to monitor. It is too early for any conclusion, however there are some elements. The negative one is there great possibility of spreading. In 2 weeks in South Africa it went from 1% to 30%, the contagiousness is even higher than that of the Delta. There is a large amount of mutations, which in itself is not a bad thing. Even if when there are many, the probability that there is a dangerous one increases ”.
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