Omicron variant, Burioni: “Does he escape vaccines? No reliable data”

“There is no reliable data (at 10.15 on November 30, 2021 to prevent someone from cutting and pasting me in four months by reproaching me) to affirm that the Omicron variant is more or less dangerous or more or less contagious, or that it escapes to vaccines “. So on Twitter the virologist Roberto Burioni, professor at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan. On Sunday, in the usual lesson at Che tempo che fa, Burioni explored the topic in depth. “The Omicron variant did not appear 15 days ago. If you go to analyze the mutations present on the genome, I think it is very unlikely that it appeared less than 3 months ago: we did not notice it, but it was already there,” he said. The observations are based on a small number of cases, in a region of northern South Africa. When the numbers are so small and the area is limited, one has to be careful to draw conclusions. A similar thing happened at the beginning of the year. San Diego: the viral strain was no longer transmissible, it found itself in the right place at the right time. It is possible that the variant is more contagious but we cannot say for sure “, added the scientist.