After South Africa notified the first OmiKeron case on November 24, as of December 17, this new variant of the coronavirus had spread in 90 countries and regions. More than 30 countries in Europe have confirmed cases of Ome Keron, and related cases have also appeared in at least 20 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including Singapore, Malaysia, China and other places.
The World Health Organization listed this variant strain numbered B.1.1.529 as a "variant of concern" on November 26 and named it after the 15th Greek letter "Omicron".
The panic caused by this variant strain caused the stock market to plummet and oil prices collapsed. The WHO immediately reminded and warned countries not to rush to implement entry restrictions because of Omi Keron. However, countries on all continents have successively imposed restrictions on the entry of passengers from countries in southern Africa.
Epidemiologists warned at that time that restricting travel may be too late to prevent Omi Kejon from spreading around the world. Omi Keron was widely disseminated within a few weeks, confirming this prediction of experts.
In addition to entry restrictions, Europe, Asia and other countries and regions have also successively turned their focus to curbing the spread of Ome Keron in the community, resuming measures such as wearing masks, stipulating store hours, limiting the number of parties, and eating in restaurants.
The WHO briefing on December 10 pointed out that Omi Keron spreads faster than Delta, but the symptoms caused may not be as severe as those caused by the Delta strain.
Or replace Delta as the most important virus in Europe
However, the United Kingdom reported on December 13 that at least one person died after being infected with Ome Keron, and the world’s first confirmed fatal case of Ome Keron appeared. The UK has so far reported more than 10,000 Ome Keron cases and at least 10 people have been hospitalized, most of which have been vaccinated with two doses.
The European Center for Disease Control and Prevention predicts that within the first two months of next year, Omi Keron may replace Delta and become the most important virus-causing strain in Europe. The Prime Minister of France, another severely affected area in Europe, described the spread of Ome Keron in Europe as "lightning" and said that Ome Keron will become the main virus strain spreading in France in early 2022. There have been cases of Ome Keron in more than 30 states in the United States. As a result, whether vaccines can resist this new strain has become a topic of greater concern.
Preliminary evidence indicates that the effectiveness of existing vaccines in preventing infection and spread of the Omi Kiron strain has been reduced. However, due to the limited number of samples and related research still awaiting peer review, WHO calls on countries to strengthen monitoring and sequencing.
The WHO also called on countries not to underestimate the enemy, saying that vaccines alone cannot deal with the virus. However, Fauci, a top US infectious disease scientist and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on the 15th that vaccines and booster shots can still resist Omi Keron, and there is no need to develop new vaccines.
Worryingly, the vaccine developed by the American pharmacist Pfizer (Pfizer) and the German biotech company (BioNTech) has dropped to 33% after two doses. However, Fauci quoted South African data as saying that after two injections, the above-mentioned vaccines still maintained 70% effectiveness in preventing hospitalization of Omi Keron-infected patients, reflecting that the vaccine is still effective in preventing hospitalization of severe and high-risk patients.
Research conducted by researchers from the United States and Switzerland shows that the protective power of various vaccines against Omi Keron varies. Researchers from the University of Washington and Swiss drug maker Humabs Biomed SA analyzed the efficacy of six vaccines against the highly infectious and highly mutated Omi Keron. Bloomberg News quoted a report on the 17th that of the 13 people who received two doses of the Sinopharm vaccine, only three developed neutralizing antibodies against Omi Keron. For Johnson & Johnson vaccine, this indicator drops to one in 12 people. Of the 11 people who were fully vaccinated with the Russian satellite V vaccine, none developed antibodies that could neutralize Omi Keron.
This non-peer-reviewed study also found that the lowest reduction in protective antibodies was a combination of previous coronary disease recovery and two doses of Pfizer mRNA vaccine.
Another anti-epidemic tool, the effectiveness of drugs, has also attracted more attention due to the emergence of new virus strains. Pfizer announced on the 14th that experiments have shown that the oral drug Paxlovid is effective against Omi Keron. Pfizer has applied for emergency authorization to use Paxlovid. In view of the increasing infection rate and mortality rate, the European Medicines Agency issued an announcement on the 16th, recommending member states to use Paxlovid, which has not yet been authorized by the EU, in emergency situations.
Another pharmacist, Merck, has also developed an oral drug "Molnupiravir", which applied for emergency authorization one step earlier than Pfizer. However, the drug has not worked well in clinical trials of high-risk patients and will only be hospitalized and The death toll has been reduced by about 30%.
Expert: Omi Krondelta and the flu, the United States may be hit by "three combos"
South Africa has not seen more critically ill patients due to the Omi Keron variant strain, and the number of hospital admissions has increased, but the number of deaths caused by Omi Keron is relatively low.
Most people infected with Omi Keron have mild symptoms, and the factors may include that they have been vaccinated or have been infected with coronary disease. Scientists believe that it is necessary to analyze more data on Omi Keron patients in order to have a deeper understanding of the degree of harm of this variant, especially for elderly patients who have not been vaccinated and have never contracted coronary disease before.
However, because the northern hemisphere is already in a cold climate with a high incidence of influenza, the situation described by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the 14th briefing is worrying. One possible scenario is the spread of Omi Keron in the United States, and the delta strain and influenza are raging at the same time, causing the United States to face a "three-strike" that may completely overwhelm the medical system. The second scenario is that the outbreak will not be much smaller until next spring, but experts are not yet sure which scenario is more likely to occur.
"Washington Post" pointed out that data show that the number of confirmed cases of Ome Keron has increased sevenfold in a week. This rate will increase the pressure in many areas where the health system has been strained, let alone the Delta strain has not gone away.
Paul Burton, the chief medical officer of Moderna, an American pharmacist, recently raised another concern. He pointed out that a super variant of Omi Kjungadelta might appear in the future. He recently warned that if a patient is infected with Omi Keron and Delta mutant strains at the same time, it is very likely to exchange deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in the infected cells, and then derive another new type of super mutant virus. He pointed out that coronavirus infections usually involve only one variant strain, but in rare cases, patients may be infected with two strains at the same time. There are currently many cases of infection with Delta and Omi Keron in the UK. This situation is very likely to happen.
WHO calls on all countries to coordinate policies to respond to sudden changes
Faced with a powerful enemy that is still difficult to understand, the WHO hopes that countries will adjust their plans and coordinate policies to deal with the situation caused by the mutation of the virus.
The number of confirmed cases in South Korea continues to rise, and the number of Omi Keron cases has increased. The South Korean government has recently considered suspending the "coexistence with coronary disease" strategy and introduced other prevention and control measures.
Coexisting with viruses or clearing them all face challenges
Liang Zichao, a Hong Kong respiratory specialist, pointed out to a reporter from the Hong Kong China News Agency that Omi Keron is indeed a relatively dangerous virus due to its relatively rapid spread. The medical system brings a lot of pressure.
The alarming speed of Omi Keron's spread also makes countries and regions that adopt the "zero-clearing policy" encounter major challenges in preventing congestion. In this regard, Liang Wannian, the head of the expert group of the China National Health Commission’s Epidemic Response and Disposal Work Leading Group, explained in Beijing that "dynamic zeroing" is not the pursuit of "zero infection", not allowing the epidemic to develop, but pursuing the elimination of the epidemic as soon as possible. He said that the connotation of "dynamic zeroing" is to alleviate the epidemic through active screening, public health and social intervention measures, and effective treatment.
The technical leader of the WHO Epidemic Response Team, Kelkhov, previously emphasized: “We are working hard to support countries to make targeted responses based on the situation, such as population conditions, the social contract relationship between the government and the people, and the intensity of policy implementation. These reactions are not static, because the virus is constantly changing, and once it begins to spread, it does not mean that it will continue to spread at this intensity."
William Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard University in the United States, believes that it may take several months for scientists to know the infectivity of Ome Keron in vaccinated humans.
Virologists and immunologists believe that Omi Keron is a wake-up call for vaccine developers. Larry Corey (Larry Corey), a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, USA, said: "Omi Keron has made us realize that COVID-19 will not go away and we need better vaccines to deal with it. "
Richard Friedland, president of Netcare, the largest private hospital group in South Africa, is optimistic. "Actually, I see a glimmer of hope, which may herald the end of the Coronavirus epidemic. It will weaken by itself to a level that is highly contagious but will not cause serious illness... Now, I am less panicked."
The impact on the economy depends on the degree of harm Omi Keron. Sithanonxay Suvannaphakdy, a principal researcher at the Yusof Issa Southeast Asian Research Institute in Singapore, pointed out that due to more international travel restrictions and more frequent blockades, Omi Kejon will make ASEAN internal and external at least in the short term. Trade in goods and services has decreased.
It is too early to make a conclusion on this Omi Keron strain, but it may indeed be more contagious than previous generations of variant strains, but not as deadly.
Bloomberg's report pointed out that this will help the world return to the normal state before the outbreak, which means that companies invest more money in services. With the rebalancing of expenditures, the global economic growth rate is expected to increase to 5.1% from 4.7% predicted by Bloomberg Economic Research.
Hong Kong Research: Ome Keron has mild symptoms
Omi Keron has about 50 previously unseen combinatorial mutations, including 32 mutations in the spike protein used by coronary disease to attach to human cells. Among these 32 mutations, there are mutations that can increase the ability of the virus to spread and the ability to escape the vaccine. At present, most coronavirus vaccines mainly target the spike protein covering the surface of the virus. Such mutations may cause problems for vaccine protection.
A study by the University of Hong Kong found that Omi Keron replicates 70 times faster in the bronchus than the Delta strain, which may be the reason why Omi Keron spreads rapidly from person to person. However, the replication speed of Omi Kiron in the lung tissue is only one-tenth of the original strain, which means that it is more likely to have milder symptoms after being infected with Omi Kiron. The results of this study increase the credibility of the early field observations by South African doctors.
The President of the South African Medical Association, Angelique Coetzee, pointed out that the symptoms of Omi Kejon infected persons are "very mild", and some patients feel "extremely tired", body aches and headaches.
Unlike Delta virus, so far, no patient has experienced loss of smell or taste, and no significant drop in blood oxygen. Most people infected with this variant strain are people 40 years of age or younger.
This article is from Lianhe Zaobao, edited by the Asia-Pacific Health Association（APHA)