Just weeks after scientists in South Africa and Botswana first alerted the world to the emergence of a worrying new coronavirus variant, researchers are beginning to understand the implication of its mutations, which far exceed the number on any previous variant.
Omicron’s 50 genetic changes include more than 30 on the spike protein, the exposed part of the virus that binds with human cells. Scientists expect these changes to make it more transmissible than the dominant Delta variant and more likely to evade the immune protection provided by vaccines or previous infection.
Why are scientists alarmed about Omicron?
Initial fears were fuelled by Omicron’s highly unusual genetic profile. Jeffrey Barrett, director of the Covid-19 Genomics Initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, described it as “an unprecedented sampling” of mutations from four earlier variants of concern: Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta, together with other changes never seen before whose significance is still unclear.