{"id":388978,"date":"2022-01-03T18:07:36","date_gmt":"2022-01-03T15:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/omicron-variant-may-impact-lungs-differently-studies-say\/"},"modified":"2022-01-03T18:07:36","modified_gmt":"2022-01-03T15:07:36","slug":"omicron-variant-may-impact-lungs-differently-studies-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/omicron-variant-may-impact-lungs-differently-studies-say\/","title":{"rendered":"#Omicron variant may impact lungs differently, studies say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;<strong>#Omicron variant may impact lungs differently, studies say<\/strong>&#8221;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/lungs-omicron-220103-03.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Recent studies suggest that the\u00a0omicron variant of the coronavirus\u00a0may be less severe than delta because it impacts the lungs in different ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In a recent\u00a0White House COVID-19 response team briefing, White House chief medical adviser\u00a0Dr. Anthony Fauci\u00a0told reporters that a study from Hong Kong showed although the variant of concern replicates faster than delta in the bronchus, there\u2019s \u201cless efficient replication in the lung.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHamster models from the University of Tokyo show that omicron poorly infects and spreads in the lung, and is less pathogenic compared to delta in a hamster model.\u00a0Belgian researchers in Syrian hamsters see the same thing,\u201d\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/press-briefings\/2021\/12\/29\/press-briefing-by-white-house-covid-19-response-team-and-public-health-officials-76\/\">he said<\/a>. \u201cNIH-funded studies that are ongoing right now in both mouse and hamsters confirm the lesser virulence in the animal model. And, studies here at the\u00a0Vaccine\u00a0Research Center at NIH, in the nonhuman primate model, are ongoing and will await results of that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fauci said that the data is still preliminary in many respects, but that \u201call indications point to a lesser severity of omicron versus delta.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is difficult to determine what degree of lessened severity is due to preexisting immunity or the intrinsically lower virulence of omicron, as suggested by the animal studies, or a combination of both.\u00a0Increased transmissibility of omicron resulting in an extremely high volume of cases may override some of the impact of the lower\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/health\/infectious-disease\">disease severity<\/a>,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd so, we should not become complacent since our hospital system could still be stressed in certain areas of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In research that has\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.biorxiv.org\/content\/10.1101\/2021.12.17.473248v1\">not yet been peer-reviewed<\/a>, authors from the University of Cambridge and the University of Tokyo reported that omicron could be significantly better than previous variants at evading vaccine-induced antibodies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To reach these conclusions, Dr. Kei Sato, Dr. Ravi Gupta and others created synthetic\u00a0viruses\u00a0that carried key mutations found in omicron and delta. These \u201cpseudoviruses\u201d were tested against blood samples from vaccinated individuals who had received two doses of either the AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.<\/p>\n<p>To understand how effective omicron is at entering cells, the team used the synthetic viruses to infect cells in lung organoids.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The University of Cambridge\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cam.ac.uk\/research\/news\/omicron-may-be-significantly-better-at-evading-vaccine-induced-immunity-but-less-likely-to-cause\">explained in a release<\/a>\u00a0that despite having three mutations that were predicted to favor the spike cleavage, the omicron spike protein was found to be less efficient than the delta spike at splitting the ACE2 protein receptor \u2013 found on the surface of cells in the lung \u2013 and entering the lung cells.<\/p>\n<p>Once omicron had entered the lung cells after cleaving the ACE2 receptor, it was also less able than delta to cause fusion between cells \u2013 something often seen in respiratory tissues taken following severe disease.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile further work is needed to corroborate these findings, overall, it suggests that omicron\u2019s mutations present the virus with a double-edged sword: it\u2019s got better at evading the immune system, but it might have lost some of its ability to cause severe disease,\u201d Gupta said.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0World Health Organization (WHO)\u00a0and top officials have cautioned that\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/coronavirus-pandemic-health-world-health-organization-united-nations-03d73750c37eea4d4f31c97422c3fb7f\">it\u2019s too early to be reassured by initial data<\/a>\u00a0suggesting that omicron leads to milder disease, and Gupta urged people to continue to be cautious.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOmicron still represents a major public health challenge. Individuals who have only received two doses of the vaccine \u2013 or worse, none at all \u2013 are still at significant risk of COVID-19, and some will develop severe disease. The sheer number of new cases we are seeing every day reinforces the need for everyone to get their boosters as quickly as possible,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>In a\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.researchsquare.com\/article\/rs-1211792\/v1\">Wednesday report<\/a>, an international group said that hamsters and mice infected with omicron had less lung damage, did not lose as much weight and were less likely to die.<\/p>\n<p>While animals infected with omicron <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/general\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"3\" title=\"General\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">general<\/a>ly experience milder symptoms, the group found that omicron levels in the lungs of the rodents were one-tenth or less of the level of other variants.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile these results are consistent with the very preliminary clinical data in humans suggesting that B.1.1.529 causes a more transmissible yet possibly milder respiratory infection, the basis for the attenuation in rodents remains unknown,\u201d the report\u2019s researchers wrote, noting that studies are ongoing to determine the basis for attenuation in mice and hamsters and to find out how this relates to the patterns of omicron infection seen in humans.<\/p>\n<p>Since the omicron variant was first detected in the U.S., states have seen\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/health\/cases-hospitalizations-states-hit-record-before-new-year\">record numbers of cases<\/a>\u00a0and hospitals have begun to fill up again.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>New COVID-19 cases have\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/coronavirus-pandemic-health-c69d1521b6411b6b78aae85d95165f5c\">soared to their highest level thus far<\/a>, reaching more than 265,000 per day on average, according to\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/coronavirus.jhu.edu\/testing\/individual-states\">data<\/a>\u00a0from the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/science\">Scientists<\/a>\u00a0have been\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/12\/31\/health\/covid-omicron-lung-cells.html\">observing the pathogen in laboratories<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 working to learn more about its transmissibility, severity and ability to evade vaccines and immune response as omicron continues to infect around the world.\n                        <\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/01\/03\/omicron-variant-may-impact-lungs-differently-studies-say\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#Omicron variant may impact lungs differently, studies say&#8221; Recent studies suggest that the\u00a0omicron variant of the coronavirus\u00a0may be less severe than delta because it impacts the lungs in different ways.\u00a0 In a recent\u00a0White House COVID-19 response team briefing, White House chief medical adviser\u00a0Dr. Anthony Fauci\u00a0told reporters that a study from Hong Kong showed although the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":388979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/lungs-omicron-220103-03.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[123038,1545,82862,5047,120464,70714,61514],"class_list":["post-388978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-1-3-22","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-vaccine","tag-health","tag-omicron-variant","tag-public-health","tag-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}