French media article: To deal with Omicron, do not despise or despair

On November 28, the website of the French newspaper Le Figaro published an article entitled "New Coronavirus Variant Strain: Many Candidates, Few Elected", the full text of which is excerpted as follows:

In fact, it was not so long ago, but it felt like it was far away. On December 16, 2020, Le Figaro published a headline titled "Covid-19: Should We Worry About the Mutant Strains Spreading in the South East of England?" article. At the time we reminded people that virus mutations are normal because they always go wrong during the replication process. Sometimes mutations appear to give the virus a selective advantage — though rarely — to emerge and even replace earlier strains. But of the thousands of variants of the virus, only a few have spread and can be counted on one hand.

The first of them was the "British Mutant Strain", which shocked the then-rather optimistic Britain in mid-December. Since then, the mutant strain and the vaccine have been racing. Since February this year, the vaccine has led with the help of the stay-at-home order. The outbreak has receded as fast as it has risen from December to January this year.

At the same time, in order not to "nationalize" the epidemic, the scientific community is looking for a way to stop talking about the "British variant". WHO then activated the Greek alphabet, replacing the "British variant" with "alpha".

Alpha was "unable to suppress"

The stronger infectivity gives it the upper hand, but how long does it take? While the alarm was sounded in mid-December 2020, from November the alpha spread throughout the south east of England, although it did not dominate. It became the dominant strain in December and went abroad at the same time. By May, it had replaced the old strain in much of the world.

However, the competition is fierce. Because almost at the same time as Alpha, other variants also appeared in other parts of the world, especially in South Africa and Brazil, two countries with severe outbreaks. The two "mutants of concern" are codenamed Beta and Gamma, respectively.

Beta, which first appeared in South Africa in August 2020, presented more mutations than alpha and proved more contagious than previous strains, but this second "mutant of concern" never really overwhelmed alpha.

The same is true of the gamma variant that appeared in Brazil in November 2020. Gamma seems to have more mutations than alphas and some ability to bypass immune defenses, but it doesn't outweigh alphas.

Delta is still dominant

In May, some scientists feared that Beta and Gamma would eventually grow to strength because of their selectivity and replace Alpha in the second half of 2021. Alpha was indeed replaced... But not by beta or gamma, but by Delta. The Delta variant originally appeared in India and now makes up the vast majority globally.

The fifth wave of outbreaks since November has swept across Europe, with a sharp rise in deaths in some countries and record numbers of infections, which is still caused by Delta. Delta is the most contagious since the outbreak and has mild resistance to vaccines. Fortunately, Delta showed little resistance to the vaccine's protectiveness in severe cases, but its resistance to vaccine protection against the virus was so pronounced that people who vaccinated still had the potential to transmit the virus.

There are many undifferentiated mutant strains

We found that of these 4 "mutants of concern," only two really dominate: Alpha and Delta. Beta and Gamma were less successful. For Omikeron, caution should be exercised these days, it is now the fifth "mutant of concern", and it has a record 32 mutations in its spike protein, which is the key to the virus's entry into the human body. There is an as-yet-unproven risk of whether Aumikoron is more able to bypass the body's immune defenses than Delta, and is more contagious.

In addition, we must bear in mind that many of the variants that have emerged in recent months, while probably attracting some attention when they were discovered, have now more or less disappeared. In the category of "strains of concern" below "strains of concern", WHO included only Ramda, which appeared in Peru in December 2020, and Miao, which appeared in Colombia in January 2021. In addition, there are many mutants that are not even eligible to enter the Greek alphabet.

Source: Reference News Network