A gas station worker stands next to a newspaper in Pretoria, South Africa, on Saturday. The new omicron variant has spread from South Africa to parts of Europe, and as far as Hong Kong.
Denis Farrell / AP
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Denis Farrell / AP
A gas station worker stands next to a newspaper in Pretoria, South Africa, on Saturday. The new omicron variant has spread from South Africa to parts of Europe, and as far as Hong Kong.
Denis Farrell / AP
A new strain of COVID-19 first detected in South Africa was declared a worrying variant by the World Health Organization on Friday. Here’s how the pharmaceutical industry plans to tackle the latest coronavirus curveball.
Vaccine manufacturers have gone to great lengths to combat the new variant: testing higher doses of booster shots, designing new boosters that predict strain mutations, and developing specific boosters omicron brand.
In a statement sent to NPR, Moderna said it is working on a comprehensive strategy to predict worrying variations as of early 2021. One approach is to double the current enhancer from 50 to 100 micrograms. Second, the vaccine manufacturer studied two Booster vaccines are designed to predict mutations such as those found in the omicron variant. The company also said it will ramp up efforts to create a boost candidate that specifically targets omicrons.
Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said: “From the very beginning, we have said that when it comes to defeating the pandemic, it is imperative that we be proactive as the virus evolves.” “Mutations in the Omicron variant are of interest and within days we moved as quickly as we could to execute our strategy to address this variant.”
Pfizer and BioNTech told Reuters that it expects more data on omicron variation to be collected within two weeks. That information will help determine if they need to modify an existing vaccine. Pfizer and BioNTech say a vaccine tailored to the omicron variant, if needed, could be ready to ship in about 100 days.
Johnson & Johnson said in a statement to NPR that it is also testing the vaccine’s effectiveness against the new variant.
NS omicron variant to be It was first reported to WHO on Nov. 24, WHO said. Preliminary evidence suggests this variant increases the risk of reinfection due to the large number of mutations. Until recently, cases across South Africa have mostly come from the delta variant, an earlier strain that has pushed the healthcare system to its maximum since early summer. But omicron infections have been on the rise in recent weeks, WHO reported.
More concerning, omicron cases have appeared globally. Al Jazeera reported that cases have been confirmed in the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Israel and Hong Kong.
News of the variant spread rapidly resulting in a flurry of Air travel restrictions from South Africa and seven other countries, made by chairperson Joe Biden, will go into effect on Monday. The president made the announcement the day after Thanksgiving, one of the busiest travel periods of the year.
Unlike last year, when Millions of people have gone against the advice of medical professionals, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and chief medical adviser to the president, Dr. Anthony Fauci, more or less share our condolences on Thanksgiving for vaccinated Americans. And, according to a American Automobile Association According to travel forecasts, more than 53 million people are expected to travel by Thanksgiving — up 18 percent from last year — including more than 4 million by air.
As of Friday, CDC said that no cases of the omicron variant have been identified in the United States. However, Fauci said on Saturday that he wouldn’t be surprised if the variant was here.
“We haven’t detected it yet, but when you have a virus that is showing this level of transmission and you’ve had the travel-related cases they’ve documented in Israel and Belgium and those elsewhere … it almost always happens that the end basically goes to all, “he said in an interview on Today only.
As Americans prepare to move from one hectic holiday to the next, CDC is predicting that coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths will increase over the next four weeks. More than 776,000 people in the US have died from COVID-19 so far, according to Johns Hopkins University tracker, and the country is expected to pass 800,000 deaths by Christmas.
