The variant of the coronavirus that will follow the Omicron strain will be less pathogenic for the human body, but more contagious. This opinion was expressed by the director of the Somov Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology of Rospotrebnadzor, Doctor of Biological Sciences Mikhail Shchelkanov on the air of the program “Advise Doctor” on the “Radio Russia”.
According to Shchelkanov, the next strain “will definitely be” because virus continues to evolve.
“Our collective immunity will increase, it will be more and more difficult for the virus to “rush around” in these restrictions and be under the pressure of our collective immunity,” Shchelkanov noted. “The virus will have to select its variants faster and faster.”
The expert noted that herd immunity will develop even if “anti-vaccination workers do not calm down,” since the unvaccinated will acquire immunity after having been ill with covid.
Shchelkanov added that in the case of “omicron” there is less mortality than in cases with its predecessors.
“I associate the effect of reducing mortality with vaccine effectiveness, primarily Russian,” Shchelkanov noted. At the same time, the expert emphasized that one cannot demand 100% protection from the vaccine – “this is not a chemical protection suit, infection will still occur, only it will flow easier.”
“And just” omicron “arrived in time at that moment … in addition to the fact that he himself is a little less virulent, the main effect is still the accumulation of our collective antibodies,” Shchelkanov explained the less pathogenicity of the new strain.
The genetic variant that will replace Omicron should be more contagious, the expert continued. To do this, it must hit the upper respiratory tract, as Omicron is doing now. In this case, the probability of the appearance of a more pathogenic strain will decrease, although it will not disappear completely.
“In three, four or five years, the virus will weaken so much, it will adapt to our population so much that it will turn into one of the already known coronaviruses and will simply circulate as an epidemic coronavirus along with them,” the expert believes.
According to the latest data, in Russia per day more than 57.2 thousand new cases detected COVID-19 disease. Delta remains the predominant strain so far, but Omicron accounts for more than 48 percent of cases.
All episodes of the “Advise, Doctor” program are available on the media platform “Looking”.