Omicron Variant

Abstract Soon after the emergence and global spread of a new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron lineage, BA.1 (ref1, 2), another Omicron lineage, BA.2, has initiated outcompeting BA.1. Statistical analysis shows that the effective reproduction number of BA.2 is 1.4-fold higher than that of BA.1. Neutralisation experiments show that the vaccine-induced humoral immunity […]

“There’s been great concern about the new Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. A major reason is Omicron has accumulated over 50 mutations, including about 30 in the spike protein, the part of the coronavirus that mRNA vaccines teach our immune systems to attack. All of these genetic changes raise the possibility

BackgroundThe SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant of concern (VOC) almost completely replaced other variants in South Africa during November 2021 and was associated with a rapid increase in COVID-19 cases. We aimed to assess the clinical severity of individuals infected with Omicron, using S Gene Target Failure (SGTF) on the Thermo Fisher Scientific TaqPath COVID-19 PCR test