What do we know about the omicron variant? Are variants always less serious than earlier strains? Will there be another COVID variant?
Simple questions about COVID-19 variants answered by a doctor ...
Simple questions about COVID-19 variants answered by a doctor ...
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00:00Omicron.
00:00The Omicron variant.
00:02Omicron.
00:03The Lambda variant.
00:04The Mu variant.
00:05This Delta variant.
00:10We always knew that the day was going to come when there was going to be another variant.
00:19A COVID variant is when the virus changes ever so slightly from the original one.
00:27To work out how variants happen, you have to look at how viruses replicate in our system.
00:32So a virus on its own cannot replicate.
00:36It has to use our cells and our software and our cells for it to divide and replicate,
00:43and then basically burst the cell that it infected and go and infect other people.
00:48So during that process, it's not perfect.
00:52In an ideal world, the virus would replicate,
00:55and it would be exactly the same every single time it replicated, but that doesn't happen.
00:59There can be small changes that happen in that process, small mistakes,
01:04and that's where a mutation comes from.
01:10In general, because viruses want to survive,
01:16there is no benefit from the host or the human dying.
01:21When there is a mutation, it's more likely to be more transmissible,
01:25but less serious or less severe to the host.
01:28But it's a completely random process.
01:32When these mistakes happen in the replication process in the cell,
01:36there's no control over it.
01:38It can either be more serious, less serious, or just the same as it was before.
01:44What you've got to be careful of is saying that this can never happen,
01:47because it has happened before, and it's happened quite recently with Ebola in 2016.
01:52So it had a variant which was a lot more deadly than the original.
02:01So we know that Omicron is quite different from the original alpha strain of the virus.
02:07So there are over 40 mutations on the spike protein.
02:11Because it's changed so much from the original,
02:13it was a huge concern that we thought that the vaccines wouldn't do anything against this strain.
02:20We've found the early data is actually pretty good.
02:22So the data coming out of Israel shows that if you've had three doses of a Pfizer vaccine,
02:30that you've got a 70% less risk of developing symptomatic infection.
02:37The overwhelming consensus is just now that a third dose and a booster dose
02:43within about five or six months of you having your second dose
02:46is going to give you a lot of protection.
02:52It's really just a term that allows the World Health Organization to
02:56allocate resources to investigate it.
03:01So when we know that Delta is going to be replaced by Omicron,
03:05you have to start doing the research into that and say, right, are our vaccines going to work?
03:10How many people are going to end up in hospital?
03:13Is this more deadly or less deadly?
03:15And that is all triggered by the WHO saying that this is a variant of concern.
03:26We know that the more this virus replicates,
03:29the more chance it has of becoming a new variant.
03:34There's always going to be the potential for a mutation in those places
03:38where there's just uncontrolled virus spread.
03:41The whole world has to come together and do a real push for mass vaccinations,
03:47not just in first world countries.
03:48We have to look after the countries that haven't got the capabilities
03:52or the resources to give out the vaccine.
03:55It's looking more and more likely that Covid will probably become endemic in our society,
04:02which means that it's probably never really going to fully go away.
04:06So there will come a time where there'll be a variant that, again, might be like the flu.
04:13So it will be a seasonal thing and we'll have to vaccinate people who are at high risk.