BREAKING! Study From Imperial College London Shows That Omicron Spreads Three Times More Rapidly Than Delta But With The Same Degree Of Severity!
Source: Omicron Research Dec 18, 2021 2 years, 4 months, 1 week, 17 hours, 12 minutes ago
Omicron Research: A new study by researchers from Imperial College London has shown that the South African variant called Omicron or B.1.1.529 spreads three times more rapidly than the Delta variant but has the same degree of severity contradictory to fallacies and fake news that were peddled by certain ‘experts’ and American, British and Indian mainstream media that the new variant only produced mild symptoms.
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The new study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, also estimated that the risk of being reinfected with omicron is more than five times higher than that of Delta variant. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/mrc-gida/2021-12-16-COVID19-Report-49.pdf
The data could change as more information on omicron's spread is gathered, though the study offers an early indication of how much more transmissible the new variant is compared to the Delta.
The new study findings from the Imperial College London COVID-19 response team estimates that the risk of reinfection with the Omicron variant is 5.4 times greater than that of the Delta variant. This implies that the protection against reinfection by Omicron afforded by past infection may be as low as 19%.
The
Omicron Research team estimated the growth and immune escape of the Omicron variant in England. The team used data from the UKHSA and NHS for all PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 cases in England who had taken a COVID test between November 29th and December 11th 2021.
The research included individuals identified as having Omicron infection due to an S gene target failure (SGTF), as well as individuals with genotype data that confirmed Omicron infection.
Overall, 196,463 people without S gene target failure (likely to be infected with another variant) and 11,329 cases with it (likely to be infected with Omicron) were included in the SGTF analysis, as well as 122,063 Delta and 1,846 Omicron cases in the genotype analysis.
The study findings firstly reported on factors associated with testing positive for Omicron compared to non-Omicron (mostly Delta) cases.
The study findings suggest that the proportion of Omicron among all COVID cases was doubling every 2 days up to December 11th, estimated from both S-gene Target Failure and genotype data. Based on these results they estimate that the reproduction number (R) of Omicron was above 3 over the peri
od studied.
Interestingly the distribution of Omicron by age, region and ethnicity currently differs markedly from Delta, with 18–29-year-olds, residents in the London region, and those of African ethnicity having significantly higher rates of infection with Omicron relative to Delta. London is substantially ahead of other English regions in Omicron frequency.
The findings also showed that Omicron transmission is not yet uniformly distributed across the population. However, the study team notes that given its immune evasion, the age distribution of Omicron infection in the coming weeks may continue to differ from that of Delta.
The findings however showed no evidence of Omicron having lower severity than Delta, judged by either the proportion of people testing positive who report symptoms, or by the proportion of cases seeking hospital care after infection. However, hospitalization data remains very limited at this time.
In order to assess the impact of Omicron on reinfection rates, the study team used genotype data, since even prior to Omicron, reinfection was correlated with negative S gene Target Failure data, likely due to random PCR target failure caused by the lower viral loads associated with reinfections.
Taking into considerations of controlling for vaccine status, age, sex, ethnicity, asymptomatic status, region and specimen date, Omicron was associated with a 5.40 (95% CI: 4.38-6.63) fold higher risk of reinfection compared with Delta.
To put this into context, in the pre-Omicron era, the UK “SIREN” study of COVID infection in healthcare workers estimated that prior infection afforded 85% protection against a second COVID infection over 6 months.
The new reinfection risk estimated in the current study suggests this protection has fallen to 19% (95%CI: 0-27%) against an Omicron infection.
The study team found a significantly increased risk of developing a symptomatic Omicron case compared to Delta for those who were two or more weeks past their second vaccine dose, and two or more weeks past their booster dose (for AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines).
Subject to the estimates used for vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection from the Delta variant, this translates into vaccine effectiveness estimates against symptomatic Omicron infection of between 0% and 20% after two doses, and between 55% and 80% after a booster dose. Similar estimates were obtained using genotype data, albeit with greater uncertainty.
Dr Azra Ghani, a professor from Imperial College London told media, “Quantifying reinfection risk and vaccine effectiveness against Omicron is essential for modelling the likely future trajectory of the Omicron wave and the potential impact of vaccination and other public health interventions.”
“This study provides further evidence of the very substantial extent to which Omicron can evade prior immunity given by both infection or vaccination. This level of immune evasion means that Omicron poses a major, imminent threat to public health,” commented Professor Dr Neil Ferguson from Imperial College London.
The study was presented in the latest report from the WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling within the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Jameel Institute and Imperial College London.
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