Omicron 5, Gismondo: “Virus more infectious but less serious”

Omicron 5, even “more contagious” than Omicron 2 today dominant in the world, “but associated with a minor symptomatology”, could represent the ‘swan song’ of the Covid-19 pandemic according to Maria Rita Gismondo, director of the Microbiology Laboratory clinic, virology and diagnostics of bioemergencies at the Sacco hospital in Milan. The characteristics of the sub-variant BA.5, which together with its ‘sister’ BA.4 fueled a fifth wave of Covid in South Africa and is now also circulating in Europe with a surge in cases, for example in Portugal, are in fact “in full harmony. with what – underlines the expert at Adnkronos Salute – based on the history of the epidemics is the phase of the pandemic tail “. “The tails of pandemics – highlights the microbiologist – are usually characterized by viruses that have a very attenuated aggression in terms of associated disease, but a much greater infectivity precisely because the pathogen tries to preserve itself”. This is why Omicron 5, which “will certainly spread everywhere because it is very contagious, must not worry us as it is not very serious”, reassures Gismondo. His vision is optimistic even thinking about next autumn: “If things stay this way, as we hope”, the return of the cold season “should not reserve us any particular problems – he explains – Surely we will have more infections, but not serious pathologies. in which the virus should have a tail, we have the tools to deal with it “.