The COVID-19 outbreak continues, and the infectivity of the Omicron mutant strain has increased, and the pressure on prevention and control continues to increase.
Comprehensive media reported on Nov. 30 that on the evening of Nov. 29, Huang Senzhong’s team at Nankai University in China revealed that the infectiousness of Omicron was found to be about 37.5% higher than that of the Delta coronavirus variant through big data modeling analysis.
Huang Senzhong’s team intercepted the daily new confirmed diagnosis data in South Africa from October 18 to November 28, 2021, and made a fit using EpiSIX under the assumption that the average incubation period and infectious period of Omicron and Delta are close to each other, and came to the above conclusion.
According to the Chinese media, thePaper, Huang Senzhong said that the incubation period and transmission period of patients infected with Omicron and Delta are close to each other as observed from the cases, but because the pandemic of Omicron is still relatively short, further observation is needed.
Meanwhile, Huang Senzhong’s team also predicted the trend of the pandemic in South Africa in the coming month: by January 1, 2022, the size of new confirmed diagnoses in South Africa is expected to reach 51,000 to 72,000.
It is worth mentioning that there is no systematic research data on the infectivity, pathogenicity and immune escape ability of the Omicron mutant strain worldwide.
On the evening of November 29, the answer on Omicron released by the official WeChat public website of the Chinese National Health Commission also mentioned that the Omicron mutant strain has both important amino acid mutation sites of the first four VOC mutant strains Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta stinger proteins, including mutation sites that enhance cell receptor affinity and viral replication mutation sites that enhance cell receptor affinity and viral replication. Epidemiological and laboratory surveillance data indicate a surge in South African infections with the Omicron variant as well as partial replacement of the Delta variant, and further surveillance studies are needed for infectivity. Source