COVID-19 Antibodies No Protection Against Omicron

"It's therefore vital that we continue to monitor the situation closely to understand the impact of the Omicron variant, which now makes up almost all infections in the country."

"There is good news in our data in that infections had been rapidly dropping during January, but they are still extremely high and may have recently stalled at a very high prevalence."

"There is rapidly increasing prevalence among children now they are mixing more following the start of the school term and, compared with December, prevalence in older people, aged 65 plus, has increased... which may lead to increased hospitalizations."  

"It's therefore vital that we continue to monitor the situation closely." 

Professor Paul Elliott, director, Real Time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT), Imperial School of Public Health, United Kingdom

PA Media

The "Plan B" COVID restrictions implemented across Britain this past December when Omicron was spreading at lightning speed through the population is being lifted. No longer is the public being instructed to work from home. Rules that meant people had to wear face masks in shopping interiors and on public transport are set to be suspended.

"It's reassuring to see COVID-19 infections beginning to slow across the country", leading to restrictions being lifted, said U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid. He did, however, acknowledge that case numbers remain elevated, recommending that people protect themselves and those around them by making certain they got their booster shots.

A large study in the U.K. on COVID19 revealed that approximately two-thirds of participants testing positive in January reported they had been infected previusly with the coronavirus. Researchers tested a selection of positive results with the intention of determining which variant was leading in infecting participants in the Real-Time Assessment of Community Transmission study.

99 percent of the samples analyzed were found to be Omicron infections, with a small number of the tests revealing themselves to be the BA.2 variant; a sub-type of Omicron, recently making its appearance, and under investigation. The remaining one percent of the infections were the Delta variant which, before Omicron came on the scene was the leading COVID variant infecting populations across the world.

 

Many research groups studying Omicron in animals have found that, compared with other variants, it causes much less damage to the lungs.  Credit...Jerome Delay/Associated Press

Over 100,500 volunteers' infections were scrutinized by study scientists between January 5 to January 20. A record number of cases was reached in early January as Omicron was recognized as the dominant variant. Among the total number of participants infections rose steeply to about 4.41 percent as opposed to 1.40 percent a month in December. Evidence that Omicron can evade at least some of the defences generated by infection with previous variants was supported by the high proportion reporting earlier cases.

 

Despite much higher infection numbers, however, deaths and hospitalizations remained lower than with previous waves. The prevalence of the virus was elevated to its highest level since the study began in May of 2020, with the peak of infections occurring around January 5, before case numbers began declining and finally levelled off from the middle of the month.

 

Among children between the ages five to 11 the highest infection rate across all age groups was identified, at 7.81 percent; infections seen to be rising with the return to school in January. The concern among researchers is that the close to 12-fold increase for those over 65 may still end up leading to increased hospitalizations.