Early signs of omicron gravity are encouraging, says White House adviser

The first indications about the seriousness of the omicron variant of the coronavirus are “somewhat encouraging”, Anthony Fauci, the main advisor to the United States government on the pandemic, said on Sunday (5), although he warned that information is still lacking.

“Although it’s too early to make definitive statements, so far there doesn’t seem to be a high degree of gravity,” Fauci told CNN.

“So far, the signs are quite encouraging,” he said.

Medical experts have recently emphasized that the population of South Africa, where the omicron variant was discovered, tends to be young and that more severe cases could emerge in the coming weeks.

Laboratory tests are trying to determine whether omicron, a strain of the virus with dozens of mutations, is more transmissible than other strains, resistant to vaccine immunity and infections, or generates more severe symptoms. Results are expected in the coming weeks.

“There is a real risk that we will have a decrease in the effectiveness of vaccines,” Stephen Hoge, president of vaccine maker Moderna, told ABC channel.

But the magnitude of the effects is still unknown, he said.

“It remains to be seen whether it will be as we saw with the delta variant, against which vaccines were still effective recently, or whether we will see something like a 50% reduction in effectiveness, which would mean we need to restart the vaccines.”

Moderna and other pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer, have already started working to adapt their vaccines to the new variant, if necessary.

At least 15 US states and about 40 countries have confirmed cases of the omicron variant.

The United States last week imposed restrictions on the entry of people from South Africa and seven other neighboring countries to contain infections.

Fauci said he expected these restrictions to be lifted “within a reasonable period of time”.