Omicron is less efficient at infecting the lungs

I keep mentioning two studies that show omicron is less efficient at infecting the lungs. I thought that I should give you the links to the studies I am referencing.

This is likely why it is much milder for many, as it is now mostly an upper respiratory illness.

Omicron can infect faster and better in human bronchus but with less severe infection in lung

In contrast, the Omicron variant replicated less efficiently (more than 10 times lower) in the human lung tissue than the original SARS-CoV-2 virus, which may suggest lower severity of disease.

Omicron may be significantly better at evading vaccine-induce immunity but less likely to cause severe disease

To see how effective Omicron is at entering our cells, the team used their pseudoviruses to infect cells in lung organoids – ‘mini-lungs’ that model parts of the lung. Despite having three mutations that were predicted to favour the spike cleavage, the researchers found the Omicron spike protein to be less efficient than the Delta spike at cleaving the ACE2 receptor and entering the lung cells.

In addition, once Omicron had entered the cells, it was also less able than Delta to cause fusion between cells, a phenomenon associated with impaired cell-to-cell spread. Fused cells are often seen in respiratory tissues taken following severe disease. Indeed, when the team used a live Omicron virus and compared it to Delta in a spreading infection experiment using lung cells, Omicron was significantly poorer in replication, confirming the findings regarding impaired entry.

a reply to: tamusan

" Less efficient "

Interesting word usage , It's one I've heard repeated several times about Omicron " Less efficient "

The truth is leaked consciously or unconsciously over time little by little if you pay attention , and describing a Covid variant as " Efficient " or " Less efficient " is an interesting play on words and I think it has some tells .

It suggest that Sars-Cov19 was designed to be Efficient , and it's creators are admitting the new variant of there creation to be " Less Efficient " .

a reply to: tamusan

As with most cornavirus situations they'll always trend toward more infectious yet less serious. At this point it may as well be take two Nuquil and call me in the morning.

a reply to: tamusan

But the final statement in that article says this:

"Therefore, taken together with our recent studies showing that the Omicron variant can partially escape immunity from vaccines and past infection, the overall threat from Omicron variant is likely to be very significant.’"

So, the article leaves things up in the air somewhat which tells me it is a real science article. Science articles usually do not say things definitively, they show the evidence and provide possible ways it can go.

On one hand for most it will be less dangerous but for some it can be a major event and possibly worse because of it's speed which limits the immune system to ramp up defense.

a reply to: asabuvsobelow

I understand what you mean, but they've been using efficiency to describe how well a virus infects and replicates for a long time.

a reply to: rickymouse

On one hand for most it will be less dangerous but for some it can be a major event and possibly worse because of it's speed which limits the immune system to ramp up defense.

That's how it's always been with common colds. Most would just have a mild or moderate illness while others would have a serious illness, and some of them would die.

originally posted by: tamusan
a reply to: rickymouse

On one hand for most it will be less dangerous but for some it can be a major event and possibly worse because of it's speed which limits the immune system to ramp up defense.

That's how it's always been with common colds. Most would just have a mild or moderate illness while others would have a serious illness, and some of them would die.

The common cold in elderly can turn to pneumonia or sepsis, just like the SARS-CoV2 virus can cause both pneumonia and Covid19. Covid 19 is just a different name to the sepsis that forms from other diseases in the body in my opinion. Covid pneumonia is getting some recognition around here now, but is still being classified for recording as covid 19 even though the viral infection is long gone. The SARS-CoV virus does suck up a lot of the immune system power to figure out how to properly respond to it, so it does create a deficiency to raise the risk of other diseases to infect you, I will not deny that, but they do not list pneumonia or sepsis directly to the flu virus or cold virus and blame it on the cold or flu completely, sure they are contributing factors but the truth is that when you get real old, your immune system kind of gets less power because our bodies tend to shuffle the energy it does get to other things. It is a part of getting old. It keeps us alive longer. The immune system draws a lot of energy to work properly.

a reply to: rickymouse

Note that omicron is less effective at utilizing the ACE2 receptors.