Simple questions about COVID-19 variants

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What do we know about the omicron variant? Are variants always less serious than earlier strains? Will there be another COVID variant?  Simple questions about COVID-19 variants answered by a doctor ...

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00:00Omicron.

00:00The Omicron variant.

00:02Omicron.

00:03The Lambda variant.

00:04The Mu variant.

00:05This Delta variant.

00:10We always knew that the day was going to come when there was going to be another variant.

00:19A COVID variant is when the virus changes ever so slightly from the original one.

00:27To work out how variants happen, you have to look at how viruses replicate in our system.

00:32So a virus on its own cannot replicate.

00:36It has to use our cells and our software and our cells for it to divide and replicate,

00:43and then basically burst the cell that it infected and go and infect other people.

00:48So during that process, it's not perfect.

00:52In an ideal world, the virus would replicate,

00:55and it would be exactly the same every single time it replicated, but that doesn't happen.

00:59There can be small changes that happen in that process, small mistakes,

01:04and that's where a mutation comes from.

01:10In general, because viruses want to survive,

01:16there is no benefit from the host or the human dying.

01:21When there is a mutation, it's more likely to be more transmissible,

01:25but less serious or less severe to the host.

01:28But it's a completely random process.

01:32When these mistakes happen in the replication process in the cell,

01:36there's no control over it.

01:38It can either be more serious, less serious, or just the same as it was before.

01:44What you've got to be careful of is saying that this can never happen,

01:47because it has happened before, and it's happened quite recently with Ebola in 2016.

01:52So it had a variant which was a lot more deadly than the original.

02:01So we know that Omicron is quite different from the original alpha strain of the virus.

02:07So there are over 40 mutations on the spike protein.

02:11Because it's changed so much from the original,

02:13it was a huge concern that we thought that the vaccines wouldn't do anything against this strain.

02:20We've found the early data is actually pretty good.

02:22So the data coming out of Israel shows that if you've had three doses of a Pfizer vaccine,

02:30that you've got a 70% less risk of developing symptomatic infection.

02:37The overwhelming consensus is just now that a third dose and a booster dose

02:43within about five or six months of you having your second dose

02:46is going to give you a lot of protection.

02:52It's really just a term that allows the World Health Organization to

02:56allocate resources to investigate it.

03:01So when we know that Delta is going to be replaced by Omicron,

03:05you have to start doing the research into that and say, right, are our vaccines going to work?

03:10How many people are going to end up in hospital?

03:13Is this more deadly or less deadly?

03:15And that is all triggered by the WHO saying that this is a variant of concern.

03:26We know that the more this virus replicates,

03:29the more chance it has of becoming a new variant.

03:34There's always going to be the potential for a mutation in those places

03:38where there's just uncontrolled virus spread.

03:41The whole world has to come together and do a real push for mass vaccinations,

03:47not just in first world countries.

03:48We have to look after the countries that haven't got the capabilities

03:52or the resources to give out the vaccine.

03:55It's looking more and more likely that Covid will probably become endemic in our society,

04:02which means that it's probably never really going to fully go away.

04:06So there will come a time where there'll be a variant that, again, might be like the flu.

04:13So it will be a seasonal thing and we'll have to vaccinate people who are at high risk.

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