Reality of Omicron varient of corona in February 2022

One to another vet cram covid-19 up.

We're going to talk today about a new variant out of South Africa called Omicron by the World Health Organization. It's official name is be one dot one dot five to nine and it was discovered initially on November 11th. Now this is based on full sequencing of the Genome of this tsarskoe V2 virus. And it's based on over 100 sequences. Meaning that they fully sequenced at least 100 subjects to find out the entire Genome of this particular variant, and these sequences have been

In primarily the countries in the South African area of Africa, but also have been seen in Israel. Hong Kong and Belgium and while originally found in these countries, they have now been discovered in other countries including Italy Germany, France and based on previous experience with Delta. It's safe to assume that it is likely already circulating in other countries as well. And the concerning thing about this particular variant is that it has a number of mutations, more mutations than we've seen in a virus that is now starting to increase in terms of prevalence in the areas such as South Africa and where it's being detected. Currently. I think it's worthwhile to review again, how these mutations are actually occurring. So, here we have a SARS Covey to viral particle that infects a human being and what it does. Is it reproduces

Self inside of that human being and it's well known that in a single human being. There can be up to a billion to a trillion different copies of the tsarskoe V2 virus. The problem is that the replication of this virus is not perfect. And so there may be mutations. Even a few mistakes means that they're going to be variants that are made inside the human being and these mistakes or these mutations mean that different amino acids are going to be inserted in these proteins and these proteins. We are going to have slightly different shapes and most of the time these shapes mean, nothing. They don't enhance the ability of the virus to infect or to replicate any better than the original copy. But occasionally, you're going to get a mutation and a amino acid substitution that's going to mean a different Protein. That's going to be an improvement in terms of infect tivity on the previous original version. They may or may not code for different proteins. And that means it looks different specifically to the immune system. It may also look different.

Just on the receptor and as we know the spike protein, which is this pink protein on the surface of the viral particle. Interacts specifically with the Ace 2 receptor and the H2 receptor, is a protein receptor on the surface of our cells, mainly found in our GI tract, and our respiratory tract and our vasculature. And so mutations. In the spike protein, may be consequential in terms of helping binding or inhibiting binding depending on the mutation. It's also the area. Oh, by the way, that is the interactive aspect of where the antibodies that are produced in the human body will interact and potentially neutralize the Stars Kobe to. And when I say neutralize, I mean preventing the tsarskoe V2 virus from infecting human cells. So the problem is is that when these viral particles are produced, they may have slightly different properties. They may have slightly different proteins on the surface, either inside the viral particle.

Outside the viral particle. And so there may be a slight mutation on the tip of that Spike protein. And so there are three major areas that we can divide this viral particle up into there is the virus itself and you can have you take anywhere within that Viral particle that can produce a different protein. There is the spike protein, which is specifically this entire Spike protein on the surface. And then, there is the very tip of the spike protein which is known as the Receptor binding. Domain. And that's a very important area on the virus particularly because that's where our immune system is going to recognize the source Covey to virus. So after the replication process occurs over and over again, in the human body, there are going to be mutations that are made. And if those mutations are advantageous, in other words, if those mutations change, the proteins in areas that make it either easier to bind or able to avoid the immune system that Can give the viral particle and advantage of survival and also transmission. And that is the concern here with what is going on, currently, in South Africa, and around the world. So, what I want to do to demonstrate what's going on with these variants of the tsarskoe V2, virus is going to look at the alpha variant. The Delta variant and this new variant called Omicron. And what we're going to do, is look at the amount of the mutations in these variants compared to the original virus.

So the alpha variant was one of the first variants and the number of mutations in the alpha was 23. In terms of the Delta variant. It was 17. This one Omicron has about 50 different mutations. So in terms of the spike protein, which determines transmissibility and also the effectiveness of vaccines, the alpha variant had nine mutations, the Delta variant had seven. And what we're seeing in Omicron is about 32 mutations. That we see now specifically in the receptor binding domain, which is that tip of the spike protein, which is very important. Alpha. Had one mutation their Delta had two mutations and the Omicron variant that we're seeing now has 10 mutations. So that gives you an idea about just the amount of mutations that we're seeing. Now, in this variant, which is quickly outpacing, even Delta in places like South Africa. Hello Angie. Congratulations. Aplicar GT car. Your booty, good guilty. But yeah, I'm Julie got a job as a nanny. Sorry Vicky security because I can't download full pay. And so what scientists are trying to Grapple with right now are these three questions regarding this new variant? Is it more? Transmissible? In other words? What is the transmissibility of this virus and that has to do with How well does it spread from person to person? Currently the Delta variant is fairly transmissible. I mean, there are some viruses that are more transmissible than the Delta variant and that would be like measles, but that's extremely. Transmissible. The question is, is how transmissible is this variant? And number two, what about vaccine evasion? How well does it evade the ability of the vaccine to work? And we're going to have to break that down into different aspects. In other words.

How easily is the virus able to infect somebody who's vaccinated? How easily is the virus able to be transmitted to another person from somebody who's vaccinated? And what is the protection of the vaccine in terms of keeping people out of the hospital? All of those are questions that we don't know the answers to at the time of this recording. And of course implied with vaccine evasion is also immunization against Natural infection as well. So the question is is whether or not natural infection will give rise to Antibodies that will also be effective against this repeated infection again with Omicron variants of source code V2, and that's a question that has still not yet been answered. And then finally, is there a change in the variance? Is it more deadly? In other words? So let's talk about these three questions of what needs to happen. In terms of transmissibility. We can see already in South Africa based on some of the initial data that's coming through. That this variant is taking

That is not saying too much because the Delta variant is also taking off currently in South Africa. However, they are at the law. Thanks have actually dropped off somewhat, as you can see here on the websites world, ometer the case rates on a daily basis have moved up to just over 1,000 and it's actually at one of the lowest points here on the graph. But it is increasing. You should also realize that only about 24. Four percent of the population in South Africa. Is vaccinated. And so when the vaccination rates are low, we can see that even in a variant that is susceptible to vaccination. You are still going to see it taking off. So we don't know the answer to that question. The question of whether or not there is resistance and to what degree there is resistance to vaccination, what it's going to take to answer. This first question is looking at epidemiological studies, and we're already starting to get some of those in place as we speak. Speak and we'll know more in the next week or so about whether or not this specific variant is increasing and is more transmissible in terms of vaccination, that is going to take a number of studies to look at. The first thing that we have to understand is that there are a number of things that vaccines do and can help with in terms of their efficacy. The first thing that we should look at is their ability to prevent infection and this is primarily done through

Is and of course, those antibodies deal with the spike protein and specifically the receptor binding domain. One of the ways that scientists have of trying to figure this out is to put in a test tube the viral particles and mix them with antibodies from subjects who have been vaccinated and what they can do is they can see what is their ability to neutralize. In other words, bind to the spike proteins, to prevent those Spike proteins from binding to the Ace 2 receptors in Ins that experiment is going to be done in the next week or so and we're going to have some more information. Hopefully about whether or not these viral particles the specific variant called the Omicron variant is going to be able to evade vaccination and they're going to have to do it with different types. Of vaccines will do it against all the different types of vaccines and see whether or not the antibodies that are produced in. Those subjects can prevent the ability of that Viral variant to infect.

Now, the way that this is going to happen is it's not going to be a yes or no. It's not going to be yes, it prevents it. No, it doesn't. We almost certainly expect there to be a reduction in the efficacy of the vaccines just because of the number of mutations that were seeing in a spike protein, but is it going to be a reduction from 90% to 80%? Or is it going to be a reduction from ninety percent down to 20%? We don't know the answer to that until we do these types of studies realize, however, that this is only part of the story because we're only talking about one aspect.
Aspect of the. Bodies to neutralize. The virus is very important in terms of preventing infection. However, even if they fall short, there remember that? There are other aspects of the immune system like the T cells and other parts of the immune system, like the natural killer cells, which are part of the innate immune system, but these other aspects of the immune system are very important in terms of preventing morbidity or disease or hospitalization and death. So as has been said before the T Cell response to these viruses is very Broad and it may very well be that even though the vaccine induced or even natural immunity induced antibodies against the spike protein may fall somewhat short. If it's found that there is still this broad T-cell response, which may prevent the worst outcomes of infection with tsarskoe V2, like hospitalization and death. Those studies are not going to be known for

Time because what we'll have to do is test those patients, who have the virus? See whether or not they have this particular variant and then see what the natural course is when they become infected and when they go on further to either be hospitalized or even died in the hospital as a result of their infection, and so, those studies are going to take a little bit longer for us to know the answer. The other aspect of vaccine evasion is the ability to prevent transmission of the infection from an individual who has been vaccinated or May have natural immunity. And the issue there is looking at the ability of the individual who's vaccinated to prevent that transmission of the virus to another individual. Again, that's going to take some epidemiological studies and those are yet forthcoming. So just to review when we're talking about vaccine evasion. There are many endpoints that can be looked at from vaccines. It can prevent infections. They can prevent transmission. They can prevent hospitalization to a certain degree.

Re and also prevent mortality. Of course. Nothing is 100%. The question is, how much of a reduction will there be with this variance that is coming out of South Africa and is now in other parts of the world? And the answer to that is we won't know until we have these studies probably. The first studies that are going to be done are going to be these studies in a test tube looking at neutralization. And that's going to give us some answers early on at least, but remember that they will not touch the ability of T cells and natural killer cells in terms of their ability. Leti, so we'll need to wait for further information. Even after these in vitro studies are done. Finally in terms of variance. It would be very rare for variance to cause a mutation that actually causes the host to die faster or make it more virulent. Now, that's not saying that this can't happen. But at this point we don't have any evidence. That is what is going on in this new variant.

Currently, we don't know what the variance is, for the Omicron variance. There are some early reports that hospitalizations are up in South Africa related to covid-19. But there seems to be less severe cases, being admitted to the hospital. This is preliminary and more information is to be needed before. We can make a determination on Omicron and variance. So unfortunately, we don't have a lot of answers at this point, but those answers are being looked at and they're being worked on.

Currently. So one of the things I want to talk about our variant independent Therapies. In other words, here are some things that work regardless of whether or not there is a new variant. And so, what are the things that actually are dependent on whether, or not, there is a new variant or not. Obviously, the vaccines are dependent on the particular type of variance. So that if there is a change in the protein structure, it's possible that those vaccines may not work as well. By the way, that's also the case for natural immunity, natural immunity in some degree is also very independent. So what are some things that will work in terms of stars? Kobe to that have nothing to do with whether or not it is a very important not here are some things that may work independently of the genetics of tsarskoe V2. And so I've listed these under variant independent therapies, of course final testing will need to be done to confirm that this is the case but it seems reasonable to put these medications in this.

Category for now. There is Paxil Ovid, which is being developed and going for emergency use authorization. And that's a medication that can reduce mortality and hospitalizations. It is reported by 89%. So that would be a medication that probably is going to be looked at very seriously for a possible emergency use authorization. There's also another medication called Mona para ver that medication has recently. Only been shown to reduce. Hospitalizations by 30% and there's a video that we did on that medication. If you want more information about that. There's also another medication called fluvoxamine which reduce hospitalization also by about 30%, some other advantages with fluvoxamine is that it's been around for a long time. It's been FDA approved for other indications and it's relatively cheap. These medications would have nothing to do with the different types of variance in terms of their ability to bind. It would be presumed that these medications would still be able to work, even in the case of variance. And of course, I would be remiss if we didn't talk about things that can optimize your immune system. We know that your immune system is highly tied to a number of behaviors that we do. And so getting ready for any type of infection is important and things that you can do to enhance your

Immune system will be in the realm of making sure you get enough. Sleep is exercising three times a week for about 20 minutes a day if that's possible. And if your physician is okay with you, doing that is having a good diet and healthy lifestyle. And again, if you want some more specifics on this, you can review a number of our videos that we've done and published on this channel. And also look at our ten tips. If you get covid-19, this is a developing story and of course will be more information as it becomes available. Available, please. Visit us at medcom. Thanks for joining us.

Welcome in micro version for me.