Omicron variant, Ciccozzi: “More contagious but less lethal, let’s be calm”

On the Omicron variant “good news is coming: it is more contagious than the Delta but, even from the first data coming from South Africa, it is less lethal and the symptoms are modest”. Massimo Ciccozzi, head of the Medical Statistics and Epidemiology Unit of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the Bio-Medico Campus of Rome, explains this to Adnkronos Health. “All the mutations we have seen on the ‘Spike’ protein tell us that this virus is taking the first steps for a true adaptation to humans – adds Ciccozzi – and this is also good news. Everyone had said that Omicron could be a variant dangerous and now they have gone back. From the first data, still not definitive, it seems that the vaccine also works. The ‘Italian’ cases of Omicron are vaccinated and are either well or with few symptoms “. “We have discovered and are publishing it, scientific work has been accepted, that this variant has greater stability in the Spike protein. This – he observes – tells us that it infects better than the Delta, it is more contagious, but it does not increase lethality. A evolution that is triggered when a virus has to adapt to humans, as happened for the cold, the strategy is to be more contagious but less lethal. So it is clear that vaccination does not protect us from contagion but from the symptoms of the disease. – he concludes – is to be calm and serene but also to take the third dose if we haven’t done it yet “.