«Lreaction to this new variant was perhaps hysterical, not rational. The concern is right, but we still know too little about it. Now people must not think that it is better to postpone the third dose to wait for a new vaccine, also because in Italy we have the Delta that can still cause thousands of deaths and against which we must protect ourselves, also because at best it will take at least 6 months to get the first administrations of a modified vaccine for the Omicron variant ».
Guido Rasi, microbiologist, former director of EMA, the European Medicines Agency, and today consultant to the commissioner for the Covid-19 emergency Francesco Paolo Figliuolo, preaches “calm” and “rationality” in the face of the alarm that has erupted throughout the world for the new variant from Southern Africa.
Too much alarm then?
Yes. It is a mutation we know nothing about in terms of epidemiological, biological and clinical behavior. We still do not know if colliding with the Delta will supplant it nor do we know if it causes a more serious disease and how it acts with respect to the immune system and therefore to the response of vaccines. We know it has 32 mutations, which by itself means nothing. So far, over 12,000 mutations have been recorded on the virus’s Spike protein alone.
So what needs to be done?