The omicron strain may be more infectious, but less dangerous than the delta strain. This conclusion was reached by scientists from the University of Liverpool, whose research preprint was published on the BioRxiv platform.
To find out how dangerous the new strain is and how severe the disease is when infected with it, biologists at the University of Liverpool infected experimental mice with variants of Pango B, omicron and delta. As it turned out, in mice infected with omicron, the clinical consequences were less severe than in animals that were infected with the Pango B and delta variants.
In addition, mice infected with the omicron recovered faster, and the virus content, both in the upper and lower parts of the respiratory system, was less.
According to scientists, the antigenic variant of “omicron” from previous variants of the coronavirus means the need to change existing vaccines in order to mitigate the negative impact of the high transmissibility of the variant.