Epidemiologist Barchuk explained why “omicron” scares scientists more than “delta”

Scientists still know little about the properties of the new variant of the omicron coronavirus and how it will interact with possible carriers. But most of all concerns are caused by how it affects the vaccinated and recovered, epidemiologist Anton Barchuk told the Rosbalt correspondent.

“New research suggests that protection after vaccination is likely to be much weaker than previous options. But this is all laboratory research, you need to test them in practice in the real world. There is evidence that the maximum protection is given by three doses of the vaccine, including a booster or a combination of “disease + vaccination”. Another hypothesis is that mixing different vaccines with a booster is better than using the same type, ”explained the epidemiologist.

According to him, it is still unclear whether “omicron” causes a severe form of the disease, there is little information, and data on deaths are received with a delay.

“The worst scenario is if the omicron spreads well, bypasses the immune defenses and at the same time has the properties of the previous variants in terms of the severity of the disease. It must be admitted that the “delta” of scientists was not so frightening, since it does not know how to bypass the immune defense and quickly spread among the vaccinated. It’s just that “delta” began to infect younger groups of the population, children. And if vaccinated, if they got sick, it was not in a severe form. Now the situation is different. In our population there are very few people who did not get sick and did not get vaccinated. From the point of view of the evolution of the virus, a logical step is to learn how to bypass the immune defense. The question is whether he succeeded in this, retaining the lethality, or not, is now the main one, “Barchuk summed up.

Earlier, Rosbalt wrote that the number of infections with the omicron coronavirus strain in Britain could exceed 1 million cases by the end of December.