Amid rising fears over new COVID-19 variant Omicron, the World Health Organization on Monday (November 29) warned that Omicron poses a “very high” risk across the globe. The WHO, however, asserted that it is still unclear how contagious and dangerous Omicron is. “If another major surge of COVID-19 takes place driven by Omicron, consequences may be severe,” WHO said in a technical note, adding though that “to date, no deaths linked to Omicron variant have been reported.”
On the other hand, a team of researchers from Bambino Gesu hospital in Rome, Italy has suceeded in publishing the first image of Omicron variant, which is dubbed as a ‘variant of concern’ by WHO.
The three-dimensional “image” shows that the number of mutations in Omicron is double the mutations in Delta variant of coronavirus. The team of researchers issued a statement about the first picture of the Omicron variant and said, “We can clearly see that the Omicron variant presents many more mutations than the Delta variant, concentrated above all in one area of the protein that interacts with human cells”.
“This does not automatically mean that these variations are more dangerous, just that the virus has further adapted to the human species by generating another variant.Other studies will tell us if this adaptation is neutral, less dangerous, or more dangerous,” the researchers said.
