Virologists interviewed by Izvestia believe that the appearance of the Omicron strain could be key to the entire history of COVID-19 if this variety turns out to be the mutation that will bring the epidemic to naught. According to medical forecasts, this process can take up to a year. So, Alexander Butenko, head of the Department of the N. F. Gamalei National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Ministry of Health of Russia, said. that the end date of the pandemic will depend on two factors: the immune layer of the population and the mutagenicity of the virus. “We see that COVID-19, like other coronaviruses, has a high mutation capacity. The longer the pandemic lasts, the more the virus mutates. But such processes do not always lead to an increase in the pathogenicity of the virus, sometimes they work to weaken it. Science has known cases of deprivation
