Could the latest version of COVID-19 cause a repeat of last winter’s huge surge in COVID-19 cases? It’s possible, Kelly Oakeson, chief scientist for next generation sequencing and bioinformatics for the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, told the Deseret News.
“We could be in for a wild ride,” Oakeson said, if the omicron subvariant known to scientists as CH.1.1 and also being called orthrus after the two-headed dog of Greek myths, is able to take hold. “We’ve said that before with other variants and they didn’t take off. But this one does seem to have a pretty nasty mutational constellation spectrum that looks like it evades neutralizing antibodies pretty effectively,” he said.
How effectively? Well, even people who have COVID-19 antibodies from a previous infection or vaccination still have pretty much zero protection against orthrus, Oakeson said, adding it also does a “really good job” of binding to cellular receptors. Those two attributes mean the latest version of the omicron variant that sent COVID-19 cases soaring to record levels just over a year ago could spark another huge surge. Oakeson said it’s not yet known whether CH.1.1 infections are more severe.
Editor’s Note: These ‘covid’ variants are sounding more and more like a transformer movie. — mmd