"Norway has had the largest outbreak outside of South Africa." Reuters pointed out.
It all starts with a Christmas party. On November 26, local time, Scacec, a local renewable energy company in Norway, held a party for employees to celebrate the holiday as Christmas approached. Among them, some employees have just returned to Oslo, Norway, from South Africa.
Coincidentally, on the day of the party, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially listed the "Variants of Concern" (VOC) of Aomi Kerong, first reported by the South African government.
The employees, who were partying in Norway at the time, may not have realized what the mutation, which was quickest recognized by WHO as a VOC, meant to them. Ultimately, the party resulted in more than 60 people testing positive for COVID-19, including at least 13 confirmed to be infected with the Ami kerong variant.
"This party is a super-spread event." Preben Aavitsland, a senior physician at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, told Reuters.
An unexpected "super-spread event"
"I just love my job." With a few aerial views, Marta Zlotkowska posted a story on social media.
That was three weeks ago, when Zlotkovska was a business development analyst at Scacac on a business trip to Cape Town, South Africa.
Recently, however, her social dynamics have become "in isolation."
Although there is no evidence that Zlotkovska is related to the SCATEC party outbreak, the Daily Mail noted that her social dynamics also seem to prove that she was one of the people who were affected and quarantined after the outbreak.
In fact, this party is not an unregulated and unregulated gathering.
A Scatec spokesperson said that before the annual holiday party, the company took as many safety measures as possible, and only employees of the company who had been vaccinated would be invited, and all of them had received nucleic acid tests the day before the party and tested negative.
However, none of this succeeded in blocking the spread of Aomi Kerong.
The Wall Street Journal noted that the Christmas party was attended by about 120 people, including some employees who had just returned from South Africa. More than 60 people have tested positive for COVID-19 and at least 13 have been confirmed to be infected with Omi kerong.
The Norwegian health department said that as medical staff continue to test the remaining infected patients, the number of people infected with Aomi Kerong is expected to rise somewhat.
The judgment on this communication incident is not optimistic. Preben said the current work assumes that at least half of the people at the party were infected with Amikeron. "To date, this is the largest collective infection of Theomexjong outside of South Africa."
Thankfully, the current clinical manifestations of patients infected with Ami kerong are not very serious. The Norwegian health department said that as of now, infected people have only mild symptoms, such as headaches, coughs, sore throats and other flu-like symptoms, and no one needs to be hospitalized. However, given the age of the infected, such a result is not surprising.
"All infected people have been vaccinated" is eye-catching
Previously, WHO had rated the global overall risk assessment of Ami kerong as "very high" because of the immune evasion potential of the Omilon strain and the potential for increased infectivity, and said it would take several weeks to understand the impact of Omilon.
At present, many scientists around the world are trying to piece together a complete "puzzle" of the characteristics of Omi kerong based on infection cases, gene sequences, etc.
This Norwegian "super-spread event" just provides data for the immune escape potential of Aomi Kerong.
"What makes this infection so remarkable is that it happened among the vaccinated population." The Wall Street Journal wrote.
A Christmas party in Norway became a "super-spread event" of the coronavirus. /Social media screenshots
Alexandra Phelan, an assistant professor of global and public health law and ethics at Georgetown University, notes that these cases are further evidence that vaccines may not prevent infection, but they may still reduce the risk of serious illness in most people.
The researchers also studied the immune escape potential of Omi kerong under laboratory conditions. Paul Bieniasz, a virologist at Rockefeller University and a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the United States, conducted a laboratory study with his team on the key mutations that appeared in Omiqueron.
Studies have found that some mutations in Omi kerong may favor its ability to evade the immune system. In an interview with the Beijing News, Binias said that they used many known mutations to synthesize a spike protein, and a large number of them are the same as Omi kerong. In the end, it was found that in people currently infected with and recovering from the new crown virus and being vaccinated, it is resistant to at least some antibodies.
Recently, there have also been new discoveries in the gene sequence of Omi Kerong.
On December 2, local time, the website of a non-profit organization in the United States that shared scientific research information published a report pointing out that Ami Kerong or gene fragments containing cold viruses. However, the report has not yet been peer-reviewed.
According to Reuters, U.S. researchers said Omilon may have acquired a gene fragment of another virus in the same infected cell, resulting in a mutation. This gene fragment has not been present in previous variant strains, but is widespread in other viruses and the human genome, including those that can cause the common cold.
Therefore, Omi kerong may be able to borrow this part of the gene fragment to make himself look "more like a human gene" to avoid the attack of the immune system. The researchers note that this could also mean that Omeikorjung may be more transmissible, but the symptoms of infected people may be milder.
The range of infection in Omikejong continues to expand
People's research on Omikejong continues, and before the veil of Omilon can be completely unveiled, it has suddenly appeared in front of the public.
On December 5, local time, according to Forbes magazine, Valensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said that more than 40 countries and regions have had cases of Aumicron infection.
Some countries have reported cases for the first time, such as Zambia, Romania, Chile and Mexico. Chile has announced the suspension of the opening of land ports, and since December 1 local time, it has banned foreigners who have visited seven African countries such as South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia within 14 days.
There are also some countries that have expanded the scale of infection on the basis of the existing cases of Infection in Omicron.
Omikeron has spread to 17 U.S. states. /Social media screenshots
On December 1, local time, the first case of infection with Omicron was reported in California, USA. Just 4 days later, as of the 5th, Omi kerong has spread to 17 states in the United States.
U.S. Public Health Administrator Vivek Murthy said the appearance of Omilon should be "vigilant," not "panicked," and that "vaccination is the best way to do it if you want to maximize your protection from the coronavirus variant." ”
In the face of the continuous mutation of the new crown virus, Davey Smith, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, also pointed out in an interview with the Beijing News reporter that the best way for people to protect themselves from the impact of the mutant strain is to vaccinate as widely as possible, in addition to reducing the spread of the virus, actively wearing masks, and avoiding close contact.
Beijing News reporter Luan Ruoxi
Edited by Zhang Lei, Proofreader Li Lijun