COVID-19 Omicron Variant Could End Pandemic Says Top Russian Scientist

A new mutant strain of Covid-19 that has sparked fears for vaccine resistance, caused flight cancellations, and sent the stock market plummeting; the Omicron variant could actually help bring the pandemic to an end, a Russian virologist has claimed.

In an interview published on Monday in Moscow tabloid KP, Anatoly Altshtein, a virologist at the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, which pioneered Russia’s Sputnik V jab, said that it is still not clear how deadly or infectious the new Omicron variant might be.

According to him, even if it does spread faster than its predecessor, known as Delta, it could take months to become the predominant form of the virus.

Even if that happens, he said, it’s not clear that Omicron means higher death tolls than at present. “Right now there are reasons to think that the Omicron variant could be less pathogenic,” he went on, meaning less able to cause harmful infection, reported RT.

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