Omicron would he be the king of the Covid-19 variants? After BA.1 and BA.2, here is a new subline of the Omicron variant just discovered in Shanghai, China. We are taking stock of what we know at the moment.
A brand new variant
At the moment there is little information on the subject. Health authorities in Suzhou, west of Shanghai, explained to the Chinese state press on Sunday, April 3, 2022 that they had discovered this mutation of the Omicron variant that is not in any local or international database: “This means that a new variant of Omicron has been discovered locally”said the desk new chinaciting the deputy director of the Suzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Zhang Jun.
Also read: COVID-19. Cases of reinfections are more common since the appearance of Omicron
pay attention
Should we be afraid of this new variant? Unanswerable for the time being. “With the circulation of Omicron, the variations of the virus are many, so the fact that there are new viruses is not surprising in itself.explains Anne-Claude Crémieux, professor of infectious diseases at Saint-Louis Hospital in Paris. What must be done is to closely monitor the evolution of the virus.†
And it goes through a study “the transmissibility of the variant, its danger (if it leads to hospitalization) and its immune escape, i.e. its way of resisting vaccine or natural immunity”, describes the one who is also a member of the Academy of Medicine. How long will it take? “It takes fifteen days, or even three weeks. †
Re-inclusion in China
For now, Shanghai, the city where the variant was discovered, is partially reconfigured since March 28† On Sunday, a new major city in the northeast of the country, Baicheng (population 1.5 million), was in turn placed under a bell, without it being known whether these detentions are directly related to the emergence of the new variant or not.
China has registered a spike in contamination in recent weeks, with 13,146 cases of Covid-19 recorded this Sunday, the highest figure since the first wave of the epidemic in March 2020. Omicron continues to spread in the country: “1.455 patients with symptoms”† “11,691 asymptomatic”maize “no new deaths reported”China’s National Health Commission said in a statement.
