The micron variant will arrive in Portugal, it’s just not known when ″
Health authorities in Portugal are investigating cases, but they are not suspected. The strain will come, but “there is no reason for alarmism”.
Health director-general Graça Freitas said on Saturday that “there are cases under investigation” of covid-19, but “it cannot be said that they are suspected” of contagion by the omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, allegedly originating from from South Africa, whose government considers the termination of calls a “punishment” for having the scientific capacity to perform genomic sequencing of the virus and quickly share the information.
To journalists, Graça Freitas stressed that “so far no case has been detected in Portugal”, which “does not mean that we are not looking for it”. And he asked travelers from countries where the strain exists to take an antigen test and repeat it five days later. In Portugal, yesterday’s bulletin reported 3364 new infections by covid-19 and 12 deaths.
Cases in Europe
In Europe, there is one case of omicron variant in Belgium, two in the United Kingdom, two in Germany, one in Italy and one in the Czech Republic. In the Netherlands and Denmark, authorities are investigating suspected cases. It is “inevitable” that it reaches Portugal, as “no country is closed to the world”, virologist Nuno Saraiva told JN. “It’s just not known when,” he noted, but “there’s no reason for alarmism just yet.”
“We don’t know much about this strain, we don’t know if it’s more or less infectious.” When the World Health Organization says a strain is worrisome, “it doesn’t mean it’s bad,” it notes, believing the vaccines “were designed for other strains.”
We must wait for the proof proven by the studies, he asks. And there is a need to “monitor, monitor, monitor” and increase immunization in regions, like Africa, where it remains very low. “It’s not surprising that another strain emerges”, he emphasizes. Despite the “screams of scientists”, it did not get vaccinated in poor countries. Nuno Saraiva disputes that Portugal and the European Union close flights, namely to South Africa.
“The fact that a country reports a strain does not mean that it is prevalent”, he observes and dangerous “to close the doors to countries where it exists, because we could be killing the messenger: for lack of capacity, transparency or for receiving cancellation of flights, may fail to give information “alert.
Refusing that omicron originates in the country and guaranteeing that “no infected person is allowed to leave the country” (yesterday, 61 passengers tested positive on arrival in Amsterdam), the South African Government claims that there are cases in other countries without any relationship (a Belgian youth was in Turkey and Egypt), lamented the impact of air restrictions on the lives of families and on the tourism and travel industries, considering herself punished for the “excellence” of her science and publicly disclosing her findings.
What do you know about a new strain of SARS-CoV-2?
The strain designated B.1.1.529, or omicron variant, in reference to the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet (O), was detected in South Africa, with a peak of covid-19 cases, from 868 to 2465 in two days . It has at least 50 mutations, including 30 changes in the spike protein, which it infects as host cells and is the target of most vaccines against a covid. But it is not known whether it is more or less infectious or pathological than others.
Is it possible a propagation of the omicron variant means among the population already vaccinated?
The British scientist who led the research for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, Andrew Pollard, says it is “highly unlikely”, as has already been seen with the delta variant, but that, if it happens, “it would be possible to act very quickly” because “the the processes of developing a new vaccine are increasingly robust”.
Will current vaccines be effective against the new variant?
The Oxford Vaccine Group director admits that it is, but warns that this possibility can only be confirmed in the coming weeks. Manufacturers of other vaccines, such as Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna and Novavax also said they were confident in their ability to fight a new strain.