So far Omicron has spread to more than 120 countries, outpacing the previous Delta variant to become the dominant one. While it has surged infections in many countries, the infections are generally touted as mild, leading to less hospitalisation as well as deaths compared to Delta.
Unfortunately, immunity wanes over time – people lose half their immunity every 3 months. Further, new variants continue to emerge that are partially resistant to key immune responses – antibodies that neutralise earlier strains – this is especially true of Omicron.
While on one hand, there s no transparent path of transmission linking Omicron to its predecessors, on the other, the variant has an unusual array of mutations, which evolved entirely outside the view of researchers, Nature reported.
When used in children, rapid antigen tests for detecting the coronavirus do not meet accuracy criteria set by the World Health Organization and US and UK device regulators, according to researchers who reviewed 17 studies of the tests.