- Omicron has been labeled a variant of concern due to its high transmissibility and number of mutations.
- 专家说，低疫苗接种率会导致病毒的扩散和进一步的突变。
- 为了帮助阻止Covid-19的传播并防止将来令人担忧的变体启动，因此必须进行疫苗接种和增强。
随着Omicron的病例继续在世界各地出现，研究人员正在竞争，以更好地了解这种变体及其对全球Covid-19的大流行的潜在影响。
The new coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa has been named a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization (WHO). It has prompted a number of countries, including the United States, to roll out new travel restrictions in an attempt to thwart its spread.
However, there’s still a lot to learn about the Omicron variant. Public health officials say that it’s too soon to say how widespread it will become and to determine its true impact on the course of the pandemic.
Healthline asked two experts who specialize in virology and infectious diseases to explain how variants like Omicron develop, why Omicron is considered a “variant of concern,” and how low vaccination rates may lead to additional coronavirus variants.
随着时间的流逝，包括新型冠状病毒在内的所有病毒都会发展。
“任何时候有人感染了病毒，病毒进入他们的身体并进入他们的细胞并开始复制自身。”Marybeth Sexton博士，埃默里大学医学院的传染病助理教授。“每当病毒复制时，就有机会犯错。”
Sexton将其与输入成绩单进行比较 - 您一定会发出一些错别字。
“这是一样的病毒,”她说。“当n it copies itself, it makes mistakes. Most of those mistakes don’t matter, but occasionally, you’ll get a mistake that actually makes the virus more contagious, or more severe, or causes other problems, like a treatment or a vaccine doesn’t work as well. And that’s when we start to get worried.”
由于SARS-COV-2于2019年首次确定，因此出现了数千种变体。这些突变中的绝大多数几乎没有影响。
但是，取决于病毒遗传物质上突变发生的位置，病毒的特性可能会受到影响，包括疾病的传播和严重程度。
WHO目前将变体分为三个主要类别：感兴趣的变体，关注的变体和高后果的变体。
塞克斯顿说：“这些本质上告诉我们，我们应该多么担心，以及我们需要采取多快的速度来保护自己和我们的社区。”
根据WHO的说法，感兴趣的变体具有预测或已知会影响可传播性，疾病严重程度，免疫逃生（例如逃避疫苗）或诊断或治疗能力的变化的遗传变化。
VOI通常还会导致一个地区或簇暴发中疾病的比例增加。
塞克斯顿解释说：“但是通常有一种感兴趣的变体，我们在整个美国或其他国家都没有看到巨大的，广泛的案件。”
关注（VOC）的变体符合VOI的所有标准，但有证据表明它要么更容易传播，会导致更严重的疾病，要么对当前的测试，疫苗或治疗方法没有反应。
“有了一个关注的变体，我们不仅需要观看它，而且还需要迅速采取行动，以阻止它进入下一个类别，这是高后果的变体。”加里·惠特克（Gary Whittaker），博士，康奈尔大学病毒学教授。
我们尚未看到高后果的变体，但是此类别意味着该病毒逃避了疫苗，诊断测试或治疗方法。还会有更多严重的疾病和住院治疗。
“Basically with a variant of high consequence, we would have a big problem,” Sexton says.
While much still needs to be learned about Omicron, several factors have made it a variant of concern.
“One is that there is some evidence that it may be more transmissible,” Sexton says, “and that’s based on the fact that we’re seeing a rapid increase in the number of cases of COVID in South Africa at the same time that the proportion of cases that they’re identifying that are Omicron is going up.”
Omicron的突变数量也很重要。
“It has a lot of changes, or a lot of those typos or errors, compared to the original virus,” Sexton explains. “And to see that, that starts to worry people about how well our vaccines and treatments are going to work. But we still need a lot more data.”
低疫苗接种率可以通过两种方式导致额外的冠状病毒变体：一种与整个人口有关，另一种与个人有关。
Because there’s a chance of errors every time a virus copies itself, viruses can mutate every time they replicate.
塞克斯顿解释说：“他们必须传播和感染新朋友，才能复制和犯这些错误。”“因此，如果您有完全疫苗的人群，那么该病毒就不会传播那么良好。因此，它没有机会犯这些错误。
“But if you’ve got a lot of unvaccinated people, you’re going to have a lot of spread,” she continued. “And when you have a lot of spread, the virus is copying itself. And when it’s copying itself, you get mutations.”
在个人层面上，当一个人签约SARS-COV-2时，接种疫苗会降低病毒突变的机会。
“What we’re starting to learn is that even if you get a breakthrough infection, meaning a person has been vaccinated but still gets COVID, those people don’t seem to be contagious for as long,” Sexton says.
“那是因为即使病毒能够稍微进入那里，最终，您的免疫系统反应是由疫苗启动并更快地清除的。”
In an unvaccinated person, it remains in the body for much longer, giving it more time to copy itself.
“So an unvaccinated person who’s infected is a better incubator to make a variant because the virus copies itself more inside of them, and then an unvaccinated population allows it to spread,” Sexton says.
惠特克说，由于这些原因，重要的是，每个人都必须在Covid-19中接种疫苗，并在合格时获得助推器的射击。
Other precautions we’ve come to rely on, such as mask-wearing, handwashing, and social distancing can also have a big impact.
惠特克说：“显然，如果您感觉不舒服，请不要外出与其他人交往。”“而且，如果您感觉良好，如果您可以访问常规的快速测试，那肯定也是处理此问题的很大一部分。”
还必须解决全球疫苗不平等的疫苗不平等，该疫苗的不平等已导致低收入和中等收入国家的疫苗接种延迟或缓慢推出。
根据疫苗资产全球仪表板, which was established by the United Nations, WHO, and Oxford University, just 8 percent of people in low income countries have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine as of Dec. 8.
相比之下，高收入国家的65％开始在低收入国家之前平均2个月开始接种人口。在低收入国家使用疫苗仍然令人震惊。
“This is the definition of we’re all in this together,” Sexton says. “We’re going to see the virus spread rapidly in places that haven’t vaccinated their population, and so this is really a setup to have variants continue to emerge from under-vaccinated, disadvantaged countries over and over again until we fix this and really get the whole world access to the vaccine.”