Virologist Vikulov: the omicron strain can spread in Russia rather quickly new omicron-strain of coronavirus in Russia. According to him, this can happen in a fairly short time, writes Gazeta.Ru.
“The virus can spread quickly enough in Russia. Due to the fact that flights are closed only on November 28, the virus has a loophole. Even, roughly speaking, one side is enough, and it can penetrate into our country. Unfortunately, this can happen at any time, “said the virologist.
According to him, currently Rospotrebnadzor and the Ministry of Health will closely monitor the situation, since the omicron strain spreads faster than the delta and has additional mutations.
Vikulov added that the effectiveness of vaccines against a new variant of the pathogen, the rate of onset of symptoms and complications is being actively studied. As soon as the necessary studies are carried out, experts will be able to give an opinion on the potential of this pathogen.
Earlier, the head of the laboratory for especially dangerous infections of the Federal Research Center for Basic and Translational Medicine, Alexander Chepurnov, said that the recently discovered COVID-19 strain, which received the name “omicron” is very different from its Wuhan ancestor.
According to him, when studying the omicron strain, scientists have identified significant changes in many important areas that form the immunological portrait of the coronavirus. This may indicate that such areas may remain “invisible” for antibodies that have developed after illness or vaccination.