Omicron: 3 Times More Likely To Cause Reinfections Than Delta

A study has been conducted by South African scientists and it was published on Thursday suggesting that the new variant Omicron is three times more likely to cause reinfections compared to the Delta or Beta strains. The study is based on data collected by the country’s health system.

It provides the first epidemiological evidence about Omicron’s ability to evade immunity from prior infection. Until Nov 27, there were 35,670 suspected reinfections among 2.8 million individuals with positive tests and cases were considered reinfections if they tested positive 90 days apart.

“Recent reinfections have occurred in individuals whose primary infections occurred across all three waves, with the most having their primary infection in the Delta wave,” tweeted Juliet Pulliam, director of the South African DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis.

Michael Head, a scientist at the University of Southampton, praised the research as “high quality.” “This analysis does look very concerning, with immunity from previous infections being relatively easily bypassed. Might this all still be a ‘false alarm’? That is looking less and less likely,” he said in a statement.

In mid-November, South Africa was reporting about 300 cases a day. On Wednesday the country reported 8,561 new cases, up from 4,373 the day before and 2,273 on Monday.

The first cases of Omicron in India:

Karnataka announced yesterday that two patients have tested positive for Omicron, the first in India. Five contacts of an Omicron patient – a doctor from Bengaluru — have turned out to be Covid positive. The patients have been isolated and their samples have been sent for genome testing, Karnataka said amid concern over the highly infectious strain that has set off the global alarm.

After extensive contact tracing, the Karnataka government said one of the two patients had 13 direct contacts and more than 250 secondary contacts. The other confirmed Omicron patient is a 66-year-old South African national who came to India with a negative Covid report. Samples from his 24 primary and 240 secondary contacts have returned negative test results.

Omicron, detected in South Africa, has been designated a ‘variant of concern’ by the World Health Organisation. It is believed to have 50+ mutations, including over 30 on the spike protein, which makes it significantly more infectious than the Delta variant.

Telangana:

Yesterday, nearly 325 passengers were screened at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport and a 35-year-old woman arriving from the United Kingdom has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. Her DNA sample has been sent for genome sequencing and she has been put in an isolation ward in Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences (TIMS), director of Public Health and Family Welfare Srinivas Rao said at a press conference.

It is yet to be known whether she has the Omicron or Delta variant. This news comes at a time when the United Kingdom has chronicled 32 cases of the deadly Omicron variant so far.