Category: Feature Stories

The World Health Organization (WHO), citing a projection, warns that more than half the people in Europe could already be infected with Omicron in two months. Omicron represents a tidal wave sweeping across Europe from west to east, adding to the increase in delta numbers that countries had experienced by the end of 2021, WHO Regional Director Hans Kluge said Tuesday at an online press conference in Copenhagen. Rapid spreadOmicron is rapidly becoming the dominant variant in Western Europe and is now spreading to the Balkans, Kluge said. He refers…

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In the original type of the coronavirus Sars-CoV-2, about every thousandth infected person was a so-called superspreader. In the omicron variant, it is even every twentieth to tenth. This is indicated by a Swiss modeling study. According to this study, surgical masks are only rarely sufficient for protection. FFP2 masks, on the other hand, still provide sufficient protection, except in situations with high aerosol production such as singing or loud talking. Scientists led by aerosol expert Michael Riediker, director of the Swiss Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (SCOEH), came…

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The alleged detection of a mixed variant of delta and omicron in Cyprus is probably due to contamination during analysis, according to experts. “These genomes are most likely artifacts,” Richard Neher of the University of Basel (Switzerland), a leading expert on viral variants, explained to Deutsche Presse-Agentur. He said the omicron mutations observed here in a context of delta genome sequences all affect a DNA segment that is often very weak in delta detections and therefore highly susceptible to contamination. Other experts expressed similar views on Twitter, such as WHO…

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The Omicron variant takes the speed of the corona pandemic to a new level. Tactically and communicatively, the next wave is also a huge problem. It’s easy, soon to be two years into the pandemic, to be tempted to describe what’s happening in terms of human morality or even fairness. Isn’t it incredibly mean that now, of all times, when vaccines are available and the vast majority of people are ready to help fight the virus, this new variant emerges? Which is apparently also a “turbo plague,” a version of…

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Both Moderna and BioNTech have already announced that they are working on such an adaptation to Omicron. One of the advantages of the technology behind these vaccines is that they are relatively easy to modify. Only a new blueprint of the spike protein needs to be produced, not the protein itself. Both Moderna and BioNTech have already announced that they are working on such an adaptation to Omicron. Moderna already shared its strategy against the new variant on Nov. 26. The company wants to proceed in parallel steps. On the…

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Preventing a new lockdown the best possible way is currently the absolute priority – at the same time, one must react to the changed situation due to Omicron, Chancellor Karl Nehammer defended the new rules on Saturday. That the announced vaccination obligation at the beginning of February comes, stands for it “beyond question”. Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler also reiterated the plan. Asked about the statement of the head of the all-state Covid Crisis Coordination (GECKO), Katharina Reich, “Durchseuchung will happen,” (spread of the infection throughout the population) Nehammer said in…

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Worldwide, the number of Corona infections has surpassed 300 million since the Pandemic began. A total of 300,042,439 cases had been reported around the globe by Friday afternoon, according to a calculation by the AFP news agency based on government data. Since the discovery of the highly contagious Omicron variant in November, many countries have reported record infection numbers. However, that has not yet led to a corresponding increase in deaths. Over the past seven days, nearly 13.6 million cases of infection have been registered worldwide as of Friday afternoon…

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The more often and the longer the coronavirus infects humans and animals, the more mutations can form. Omicron is the best example of this. Thus, the risk of being infected with two different Corona variants at the same time also increases, because it is quite possible. But how dangerous is a double infection with Corona? Unfortunately, the Corona pandemic continues to bring new challenges. And many questions cannot yet be conclusively answered. For example, the question of whether a double infection (also called co-infection) with two Corona variants at the…

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The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned against classifying the Omicron variant of the coronavirus as “mild.” “Just like previous variants, people have to go to hospital because of Omicron, and it kills people,” WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said yesterday in Geneva. Even though Omicron appears to lead to less severe disease than the previously prevalent Delta variant, the variant should not be classified as “mild,” he said. The wave of new infections caused by the Omicron variant is “so huge and so fast” that it is leading to…

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